PORTLAND, Maine — U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez urged Maine women to back Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Troy Jackson at a Portland town hall Thursday, arguing health care and families would be best served by ousting Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
The New York Democrat targeted Collins’ vote on the motion to advance the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, though she voted against the final bill. She also cited the senator’s vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh before he helped overturn federal abortion rights. Collins voted against final passage of Trump’s spending bill, as she stressed during debates with Jackson.
Ocasio-Cortez said Collins, as one of the few Republican women in the Senate, had been in a unique position “to protect every woman in America,” but failed.
“If we want to be able to deliver our children safely and for our men to protect our families in moments of crises like these, the most important thing we can do for women in Maine is vote for Troy Jackson,” she said to resounding applause.
Jackson is in a toss-up election with Collins that could decide control of the Senate. The visit from one of the country’s top progressives came 12 days before Election Day and two weeks after rallies with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, that looked aimed at revving up an angry Democratic base.
Hosted by progressive nonprofit More Perfect University, the packed event at the State Theatre was billed as “Students vs. Billionaires.” It hit on Jackson’s core argument that Collins and a Republican-led Congress are beholden to wealthy donors and have failed to check the Trump administration, something the senator has disputed during her campaign.
Jackson pledged to fight for Medicare for All and for research investments to curb Alzheimer’s and cancer, which has been a major priority for Collins. He dismissed arguments that universal health care is too costly, saying his initial priority would be ending “blank checks” for the war in Iran, which has driven up fuel and gas prices nationwide.
“We can make people’s lives even better,” Jackson said. “It’s going to start with research.”
Supporters came from across the state and country, and many described the narrow, increasingly heated Maine race in national terms.
“It’s like we don’t have a Congress,” said Paul Joyce, a New Hampshire resident whose daughter has joined the Jackson campaign. “There’s a real danger of losing our democracy.”
Collins campaigned in Lewiston on Wednesday with former Sen. Joe Manchin, I-West Virginia. Outside Simones’ Hot Dog Stand, Manchin touted their bipartisan work on infrastructure and health care, called Collins “the soul of the Senate” and chastised Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, for targeting the chamber’s leading centrist.
“Troy is spending his time with far-left progressive office holders who either don’t know or don’t care about the difficulties that he has had working with women,” Blake Kernen, a Collins campaign spokesperson, said in a statement nodding to the rural health care fund and reports on his temper in the State House.
Ocasio-Cortez credited Jackson for ignoring Washington consultants who may have urged him not to share a stage with her. She said the ruling class that has long run Congress is trying to protect Collins by painting Jackson as a communist.
“They’ve been afraid of a waitress in the House and a logger in the United States Senate,” she said, referencing her job when she was elected to a New York City seat. “They critique how he looks, how he talks, [but] when you have someone like Troy, it disrupts and makes it harder for everyone to get away with gladhanding.”