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Democrat Troy Jackson posted his strongest polling of the Maine U.S. Senate race in two surveys released Sunday, but most voters still don’t think he will beat U.S. Sen. Susan Collins.
A University of New Hampshire poll had Jackson ahead 54% to 45%. A New York Times/Siena College poll conducted with the Portland Press Herald had him leading 51% to 45%. In September, the same Times poll had Collins ahead 49% to 46%.
Yet 56% of likely voters in the UNH poll said the five-term Republican will win Tuesday, compared with 26% who picked Jackson and 18% who were unsure. Nearly all Collins voters, 95%, think she will win. Only 47% of Jackson’s own voters think he will.
The nervousness is probably due to Collins defying polls before. In 2020, Democrat Sara Gideon led every public poll leading up to Election Day. Collins won by nearly 9 points, and the polling misses in that race were among the worst in the country.
This year’s race could decide control of the U.S. Senate. Most October polls had Jackson ahead by 2 to 5 points or tied, and Collins has not led a public poll since late September.
The two new polls split on how voters see her. The Times had Collins nearly even, with 48% viewing her favorably and 49% unfavorably, while UNH had her underwater at 39% to 54%.
Collins led Jackson in the 2nd Congressional District by about 10 points in The Times poll after carrying the area by 23 points in 2020, according to state results. She lost what is now the 1st District by 4 points that year, and The Times had her down 22 there. Former Gov. Paul LePage, the Republican running for the open there, led Democrat Matt Dunlap by 5 points in both polls.
Collins drew 10% of voters who backed Kamala Harris in 2024 in The Times poll, right at the 1-in-10 floor a Bangor Daily News analysis found she needs. But the Democratic electorate looked more energized in both survey. Also, UNH found almost no crossover, with 98% of Democrats backing Jackson.
President Donald Trump is a drag on Collins in both surveys, with about 60% of likely voters disapproving of his job performance. In the UNH poll, 48% said their Senate vote was meant to oppose Trump.
Around her 2020 win, Collins credited the warm reception on her bus tour rather than the polls. She made a similar case in an interview with Fox News on Sunday.
“I’m feeling very optimistic based on the great response I get in visiting communities all over the state,” she said.
Jackson has framed the final days around turnout, spending much of his time in cities and in the Portland suburbs that Collins has always overperformed other Republicans in.
“We will not outspend them, but we will outwork them,” Jackson told volunteers at his Bangor field office Saturday.