There was no sign of a problem in U.S. Sen. Susan Collins’ hotel suite.
When a Bangor Daily News photographer was invited in around 10:40 p.m. Tuesday, Collins and about 10 family members were watching CNN at Bangor’s Hilton Garden Inn, chatting quietly and checking their phones over Polar seltzers and whoopie pies.
The photographer told the five-term Republican she wanted to capture what politicians do on election night away from the crowds, and Collins chuckled.
“This is it,” she said.
She led the statewide count at the time, by more than 4 points with 30% of votes in. But her campaign had begun to worry about 90 minutes earlier, when results came in from Auburn. The city, the largest one fully counted at that point, went from backing Collins by 8 points in 2020 to backing Democrat Troy Jackson by nearly 5.
About an hour after the photographer left, as Portland’s votes erased her lead, Collins called Jackson to concede.
“Sen. Collins and I had a hard campaign,” the senator-elect told supporters in Portland. “But to every Mainer who voted for her, you can count on me to be your senator now.”
Collins never came back out to the ballroom, where “Closing Time” by Semisonic was playing by 1 a.m. She lost by about 6 points, becoming the first Maine senator ousted by voters since 1978 after a wave of resentment toward President Donald Trump handed Democrats the Senate.
For three decades, Collins defied the gravity that pulled down other Republicans in New England. She won in 2008 as Barack Obama carried Maine, and in 2020 she beat Sara Gideon by nearly 9 points after trailing in every public poll. She steered $1.5 billion in earmarks to Maine over the past five years as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, by her campaign’s count, and never missed a roll-call vote.
Collins told The New York Times on Wednesday that she was caught up in “the Trump tsunami,” and that voters ignored her breaks with the president, including her vote to convict him in his second impeachment trial.
“Anyone who sides with Trump, I’m not going to go with them,” said Kabala Muka, a 26-year-old nurse anesthetist and unenrolled voter who backed Jackson in Gray.
In the final stretch, her campaign’s tracking polls swung day to day within the margin of error, showing Collins up, down and tied, according to a person familiar with the polling. Her campaign said the picture at the end was that of a close race. Most of the late public surveys showed Jackson with a lead.
On Monday, two buses of staffers and supporters pulled up at a Van Buren bakery on the last day of her bus tour to cheer for Collins, who arrived later in a black car, greeted a handful of locals and left after about 15 minutes. As she and her team headed out, a reporter asked a spokesperson if she could ask Collins questions about what she made of surveys released Sunday showing her behind. One of those polls had Collins down 6 points.
“We’re not going to react to that lie, but you can email them,” the staffer said, and the senator went on to her next stop.
It was a stunning turnabout for Jackson, a former Allagash logger and Maine Senate president who finished third in the June primary for governor. Democrats drafted him in July after Graham Platner, their Senate nominee, quit the race following a sexual assault allegation he denied.
Jackson’s campaign repeated one line from start to finish: Collins votes with Trump 96% of the time. The outdated figure was drawn from 2025 votes on which the president took a position, but David Farmer, a senior adviser to Jackson, said the exact number mattered less than the choice it described in a polarized Senate running increasingly more on majority power.
“There’s no deals to be cut,” he said. “You’re either with Trump or you’re against him, and she was with him.”
While her national party scrambled to save her, Collins tried to reach both ends of the electorate. She attended a Gorham rally in September featuring a live interview with Boston radio host Howie Carr. Last month, she brought former Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a Democrat turned independent, to Maine to help her argue she was no rubber stamp for Trump.
Her campaign described it as an answer to Jackson’s appearances with national progressives, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But the two also stopped by conservative radio host Ray Richardson’s studio, where they posed with the “Sword of Truth,” a prop associated with the conservative Maine Wire.
There were few swing voters left to win, with most final public polls finding 5% or fewer undecided. Richardson noted that because Republicans trail both unenrolled voters and Democrats in Maine enrollment, even a perfect base turnout wasn’t enough.
“It seemed noticeable to me that there was a moment where they realized the traditional base was not coalescing,” he said. “It was just no question in my mind that the coalition she was going to need to win is different than any coalition she’s ever had before.”
Both sides went hard at character. WinSenate, a Democratic super PAC, spent about $9 million on ads accusing Collins of getting rich in office, some citing a ProPublica report that FBI agents had sought to widen a bribery investigation that could have involved her. Collins called the allegations false, and FBI leadership reportedly didn’t credit the donor’s claims.
But Republicans outspent Democrats $112.2 million to $85.9 million in ads on the race after Jackson became the nominee, according to AdImpact. They spent a bit more calling Jackson corrupt and another $5.5 million on ads about his personal conduct and temper and temper, including an outside group’s radio ad mocking his family that Collins asked to be pulled.
One of Collins’ closing ads featured retired News Center Maine sportscaster Bill Green, whose spots for her were credited for helping her win in 2020. In it, he said this race wasn’t about “buying a cord of wood” and that Jackson “doesn’t have the tools he needs to be effective.”
Green wrote that line himself, he said. He was trying to say Jackson lacked relevant experience and was frustrated by the attacks on Collins’ character, imploring a reporter to include his statement that he doesn’t know a more honest and decent person than the senator.
Jackson turned Green’s line into a talking point and a punch line. He argued that with heating costs soaring, the election “is about a cord of wood.” Then he dressed as a cord of wood at a Halloween event in Portland. Green called that a smart move by Jackson’s campaign, but he made clear he didn’t care for it.
“How do I think he looked dressed up like a cord of wood? I thought Ed Muskie and George Mitchell didn’t do that. I’ll leave it at that,” Green said, referring to Maine’s legendary senators, adding that he didn’t remember former Sen. William S. Cohen “dressed as an outhouse or anything.”
In about 100 days, Jackson raised $31 million and held more than 100 public events. The campaign’s surveys told the story of the race, Farmer said. More than any other word, voters most associated Collins with Trump. Jackson was defined by “personal attacks,” a line he suspected didn’t work because it doesn’t make “anybody’s life better.”
Green likened his current situation with Jackson to shaking hands at midfield after a football loss. He doesn’t dislike the senator-elect, finds his personal story affecting and hopes he proves him wrong. He also understand why voters are upset with the president.
“I think it was all about Trump,” Green said. “All the way across the nation, I think it was all about Trump.”
BDN writers Benjamin Kail, Linda Coan O’Kresik, Callie Ferguson and Kathleen Phalen Tomaselli and freelancer Sam Shepherd contributed to this report.