On the eighth anniversary of her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins refused to say she regretted it in her first debate with Democrat Troy Jackson. Instead, she turned his own anti-abortion past against him.
The Republican and the former Maine Senate president spent much of Tuesday night’s CBS News 13 debate attacking each other’s records on abortion and ethics. It was the first of four debates in 10 days, four weeks before an election that could decide control of the U.S. Senate.
The two candidates tugged at each other the entire hour. Jackson repeatedly tied Collins to President Donald Trump, whose approval rating in Maine stands at 40% in a Marist poll released Tuesday, while the incumbent looked to distance herself from the president’s tariffs at a time of high costs. The tone matched the similarly divisive 2020 campaign that Collins won despite trailing in nearly every public poll.
Jackson opened before even introducing himself by noting that Maine women begged Collins to vote against Kavanaugh, who later joined the 2022 majority that overturned Roe v. Wade. He pressed further when the candidates got to question each other.
“What will it take for you to admit you’re ever wrong?” Jackson said.
Collins said she judges nominees on their full qualifications, not one issue. She noted she is the only Republican senator to vote for all three justices nominated by recent Democratic presidents.
“I clearly don’t agree with how Brett Kavanaugh voted on Roe v. Wade,” she said.
She then targeted Jackson, a Catholic who has won in conservative northern Maine, including around Collins’ hometown of Caribou. She said there was “only one of us on the stage who’s always been pro-choice, and that’s me,” a reference to his anti-abortion record earlier in his career. He is now endorsed by Planned Parenthood’s Maine chapter and let the attack pass.
The debate also put a spotlight on a ProPublica report that the FBI investigated Collins as late as 2024 over an alleged pay-to-play scheme with Navatek CEO Martin Kao. Kao created a shell company to make an illegal $150,000 donation to a pro-Collins super PAC in 2019. ProPublica reported that the Trump administration shut down the inquiry in 2025, while The New York Times reported that FBI leaders did not find Kao’s claims credible.
Collins said her only link to Navatek was a research partnership with the University of Maine.
“These allegations are completely false,” she said. “The head of Navatek at the time was unfortunately a crook. He is now in jail where he belongs.”
Jackson said his son, a former lobbyist, did nothing wrong when asked about accusations that he used his office to help his family. He quickly pivoted back to the ProPublica report.
“I don’t owe Trump, I don’t owe billionaires nothing,” Jackson said. “But I do owe the people of Maine everything.”
Collins said Jackson “has a lot to answer for” on a Federal Housing Administration loan for an Augusta home that he listed as his primary residence while representing Aroostook County. The Maine Ethics Commission voted unanimously against investigating the matter in 2023. Jackson said his home has always been in Allagash.
The candidates split along the same line on the cost of living. Collins blamed Augusta and Jackson blamed Washington.
Collins said high housing costs, property taxes and electricity rates are “all due to Augusta’s failed policies under the failed leadership of Troy Jackson.” She pointed to the $1.5 billion in earmarks she says she has secured over the past five years as federal help easing the burden.
Jackson put the blame on Collins’ record with Trump. He cited the Iran war and tariffs for soaring fuel and electricity costs, along with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Collins voted against but helped bring to the Senate floor. Collins said she let the bill advance only so she could write a $50 billion rural health care fund into it.
“It is so frustrating to hear these falsehoods repeated time and time again,” she said.