Democrat Troy Jackson Ousts Susan Collins in Maine, Ending Her Five-Term Senate Tenure

Troy Jackson, a Democrat, has won Maine's US Senate race, ending the Senate career of Republican Susan Collins, who had held the seat since 1997. The result, reported on election night in the 2026 midterms, ranks among the biggest upsets of the cycle. Jackson is 58. Collins was a five-term incumbent whose tenure stretched across nearly three decades in Washington.

The campaign was close and often bitter. Both sides accused the other of corruption, and the two clashed over living costs in a state that is predominantly rural. The win hands Democrats one of the pickup opportunities they most wanted this cycle.

Jackson is a lumberjack by trade and a former president of the Maine state senate. He ran on progressive economic populism, and he set out to dismantle the image Collins had spent years building as a moderate Republican willing to break with Donald Trump. He cast her instead as a loyal supporter of the president. His argument leaned on her record of critical votes, including her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the supreme court. Jackson said that vote helped pave the way for the overturning of the constitutional right to abortion.

Collins answered with a different portrait. She described Jackson as ideologically inconsistent and said he lacked the experience to deliver for Maine at the federal level. She was the only Senate Republican running in a state Trump lost in 2024, and she made that fact part of her case, arguing that her independence and influence had produced tangible results. She often pointed to the millions of federal dollars she had helped steer to Maine as chair of the Senate appropriations committee.

Both candidates were courting the same group of voters: Mainers comfortable splitting their tickets. In 2020, many of them voted for Joe Biden for president and also sent Collins back to the Senate.

Economic pressure hung over the final weeks. Maine has been hit hard by soaring fuel costs tied to Trump's war with Iran, along with record-high heating oil prices that began squeezing voters as temperatures dropped before the election. The administration's sweeping tariffs have also hurt several of the state's most important industries.

The road to Jackson's nomination was unusual. The first Democratic nominee, Graham Platner, an oysterman and former marine, was forced out after a cascade of scandals that ended with an allegation of sexual assault and rape, which he denied. Collins repeatedly tried to tie Jackson to Platner's brand of progressivism, pointing out that the two had campaigned together during Jackson's unsuccessful run for governor earlier in the year.

Maine Democrats had only weeks to organize a special convention to choose Platner's replacement. Once Jackson won that nomination, he had just 101 days to build a Senate campaign. He used them to take down a senator who had held the seat since 1997, and his win becomes one of the defining results of the 2026 midterms.