U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and Democrat Troy Jackson were tied at 49% among likely voters in a Fox News poll released Thursday, the latest survey to show Maine’s Senate race as a coin flip less than two weeks before Election Day.
It is one of the better results this month for Collins, a Republican who has not led a public poll since late September and trailed in every single one in 2020 before handily beating Democrat Sara Gideon. Jackson has a 56% chance of winning, according to Decision Desk HQ.
The toss-up race is one of a handful that will decide control of the U.S. Senate. Collins is seeking a sixth term against Jackson, a former Maine Senate president from Allagash who has been on a dead campaign sprint since becoming the nominee in July. He replaced Graham Platner, who withdrew over a rape allegation from an ex-girlfriend.
Fox’s August poll surveyed only registered voters and had Jackson up 2 points. He holds the same margin among registered voters now, even as most of the remaining undecided voters have picked a side.
Trump is the biggest drag on Collins. Just 37% of likely voters approve of the president’s job performance, and a majority said they are concerned the senator votes with him too often, including 42% who are extremely concerned about that.
But Collins holds a clear path to victory that runs through crossover voters. She leads independents by 13 points in the Fox poll, and 1 in 5 likely voters who disapprove of President Donald Trump are backing her. An AARP poll last month found Collins with more swing support than any other Republican in seven battleground states.
She is running well ahead of her party. More likely voters want Democrats to control the Senate than Republicans, and Democrat Hannah Pingree leads Republican Bobby Charles by 10 points in a governor’s race that has drawn relatively little attention and also includes independent state Sen. Rick Bennett.
Most October polls in the Senate race have looked similar. Jackson led by 2 points in surveys from InsiderAdvantage, Suffolk University and Rasmussen Reports, and by 4 in Marist and Washington Post surveys. Collins’ last lead came in a co/efficient poll from the end of September.
The Fox poll, which surveyed 1,514 likely voters from Oct. 16-20, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.