Politics
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Democrat Troy Jackson leads U.S. Sen. Susan Collins by 3 points in an AARP poll released Thursday, but no Republican in the group’s battleground Senate surveys this year is doing better with voters who split their tickets than the five-term incumbent.
The survey shows Jackson winning a base election that pits young voters against old ones. His 25-point lead among voters under 50 is outweighing Collins’s 9-point edge with older voters. But Collins, who trailed in every public poll in 2020 before winning by 8 points, has more swing-voter support than any Republican in AARP’s seven battleground Senate polls.
The same pollsters found Democrats leading or tied in all seven races dating back to June, including in Republican-leaning Texas and Ohio. Collins’ hold on ticket-splitters is what keeps her within striking distance in a terrible environment for President Donald Trump and her party.
“Susan Collins is the thing that differentiates this battleground from many of the others that we’re looking at this cycle,” said Bob Ward of Fabrizio Ward, the Republican firm that works for Trump and conducts AARP surveys with Democratic-aligned Impact Research. “She is not a traditional Republican.”
Jackson, a former Maine Senate president from Allagash, led Collins 50% to 47% in the survey of 982 likely voters taken Sept. 20-22. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The survey was taken concurrently with three others released last week, two of which had Jackson narrowly ahead.
The age split in AARP’s poll is stark. Jackson led voters 18 to 34 by 47 points. Collins led voters 50 to 64 by 12, the widest margin with that group for any Republican in AARP’s Senate polls. She led those 65 and older by just 7, the smallest senior margin among them. Yet even that lead reflects crossover support, because Maine seniors favored Democrats for Congress by 6 points.
There may be a turnout edge in Collins’ base. Only 69% of the youngest voters rated their motivation to vote at a 10 out of 10, compared with 89% of voters 65 and older. Younger voters may not turn out in the numbers the survey assumes, Ward cautioned.
Collins’ path runs through swing voters 50 and older, according to the AARP survey. These voters didn’t pick the same party in the Senate, governor and generic congressional races, making up 20% of the poll’s older voters and backing the Republican 70% to 17%.
The 53-point margin within that demographic is the widest of any Senate candidate in AARP’s polls of Alaska, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Maine this cycle. The next-best showing was former Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers’ 33-point lead in Michigan. Every other Republican was losing swing voters.
Collins was also the only candidate in the series with a positive image among those voters, at 59% favorable to 32% unfavorable. Jackson was underwater at 23% to 60%, the worst of any major-party Senate candidate AARP tested.
Her crossover appeal extends beyond that group. Collins won 11% of Democrats, the most for any Republican in the series. Democrats led the generic congressional ballot here by 10 points, yet she ran 7 points ahead of her party. That was also the most of any Republican AARP polled.
She’s doing this in the most anti-Trump electorate AARP surveyed this cycle. Trump’s job approval in Maine was 37% to 61%, worse than in any of the other six states.
But the electorate still isn’t sold on Collins. Voters viewed her favorably by 44% and unfavorably by 53%, while Jackson’s image was 47% to 44%.
Few voters are left to persuade. Only 3% were undecided, the lowest of any Senate race in AARP’s battleground polls this cycle. The rest ranged from 5% in Georgia, Michigan and North Carolina to 8% in Texas. Ward said many of these voters may not ultimately turn out.