Politics
Our political journalists are based in the Maine State House and have deep source networks across the partisan spectrum in communities all over the state. Their coverage aims to cut through major debates and probe how officials make decisions. Read more Politics coverage here.
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins led Democrat Troy Jackson in a New York Times/Siena/Portland Press Herald poll released Thursday, marking her best showing in a major public survey of the November race.
The five-term Republican leads 49% to 46% among 619 likely voters polled Sept. 15-22, within the poll’s 4.9-point margin of error. The survey was conducted almost entirely before a ProPublica report this week on a shelved federal corruption inquiry that touched on Collins.
The result runs against most recent polling. Jackson led 48-46 in an August Fox News poll and 48-45 in a CNN poll taken in early September. But it comes after a deluge of Republican advertising against Jackson, who have spent $49.1 million of the $83.8 million in ad reservations between late July, when he joined the race, and today.
The largest difference in this survey was in how voters see Collins. The Times poll found 51% view her favorably and 48% unfavorably, while Fox and CNN both had her 10 points underwater. Jackson, a former Maine Senate president from Allagash, is eight points underwater.
Collins’ standing has held up even as President Donald Trump’s has sharply eroded. Only 32% of likely voters in the Times poll approve of Trump’s job performance, and they prefer Democratic control of the Senate 55-43. A separate University of New Hampshire poll also released Wednesday found Trump’s approval at 37% with ratings on the economy and foreign affairs at second-term lows.
In the Times poll, Collins won 12% of voters who backed Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024, while Jackson got 3% of Trump voters, a decisive sum that echoes her 2020 victory despite trailing in every public poll. The incumbent got only 4% of Democrats in the earlier CNN poll.
The ProPublica report, published Tuesday, detailed claims by Martin Kao, the imprisoned former CEO of Hawaii defense contractor Navatek. Kao told the FBI that Collins’ office steered millions in Navy research money to his company while her campaign and an allied super PAC sought his donations. FBI agents sought a broader bribery investigation of members of Congress based on his account, but it died after Trump returned to office, according to ProPublica.
Kao pleaded guilty in 2022 to campaign finance crimes. No one working for Collins was charged. Collins’ office called Kao’s claims “outlandish” and vigorously denied them, and the senator criticized the media outlet in interviews this week.