At a Thursday debate, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said American democracy “will be just fine” while Democratic opponent Troy Jackson questioned whether President Donald Trump will leave office when his term ends.
The exchange came in response to a submitted question toward the end of the fourth and final debate of Maine’s toss-up U.S. Senate race, hosted by Maine Public, News Center Maine and the Portland Press Herald at the Gracie Theatre at Husson University in Bangor.
It was the clearest of the many philosophical divides in a race that could decide control of the Senate, and it gets at the central challenge for Collins. The five-term Republican is running in a Democratic-leaning state where Trump is unpopular, needing a significant share of voters who dislike the president to stick with her as they have in the past.
The question came from Bridget O’Brien of Harpswell, who asked in a video whether democracy is under attack and what it will look like in five to 10 years. Jackson, a former Maine Senate president from Allagash, said Republicans in Congress have handed Trump their power over wars and tariffs, pointing to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“I do think that our democracy is at risk,” Jackson said. “Donald Trump is trying every trick in the book to keep power.”
Collins, who was one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump on an impeachment charge related to the Capitol riot, took a longer view. She said she has worked with five presidents and supported the campaign of only one, George W. Bush, and that presidents of both parties have tried to take more power from Congress.
“I think that Congress does need to keep reasserting itself,” Collins said. “But I think our democracy will be just fine.”
Jackson went further on the night’s final policy question, about Trump’s warmer posture toward rivals like Russia and China. He said Trump “wants to be a dictator” and that the “single biggest problem with democracy” is whether he will “go away when his term is up.”
“We have to make damn sure” that happens, Jackson said. Trump has repeatedly floated a third term, which the 22nd Amendment bars.
The debate was held before an invited audience, with each campaign given 100 seats. It was interrupted early when a person wearing what appeared to be a press badge shouted as Collins began answering a taped question from a University of Maine student.
“This is obviously one of Troy’s supporters,” Collins said.
“Oh, shut up,” Jackson replied. “I don’t even know that kid.”
The candidates also clashed over money. Collins asked how Jackson could say he does not benefit from corporate PAC or billionaire money while running “hybrid ads” with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has taken money from billionaires and corporate PACs.
Jackson said he had “no knowledge of those ads” and that it “would be illegal” for him to make decisions on them. That is true of outside groups but not of hybrid ads, which a party and a campaign pay for jointly. Collins and the National Republican Senatorial Committee have spent about $2.4 million on such ads to about $835,000 for Jackson and the DSCC, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. After the debate, a Jackson spokesperson said he misspoke.
The candidates made their cases for Senate control at the top of the debate. Asked how the country would benefit from their party controlling the Senate, Jackson said a Democratic majority would block anti-abortion court picks, tax cuts for the wealthy and the war with Iran, which has driven up fuel prices.
“People are going to start losing their businesses, losing their homes because of the Republicans’ insistence on doing what Donald Trump wants,” Jackson said.
Collins pointed to “totally open borders” under President Joe Biden and to her own record. She said studies show she is the most bipartisan member of the Senate.
“We need more people in the center,” she said. “We don’t need more people who are going to vote a straight party line.”
BDN writer Benjamin Kail contributed to this report.