The Associated Press has called Maine's United States Senate race for Democrat Troy Jackson, defeating Republican Senator Susan Collins by 291,798 votes to 258,555 when the race was called — a flip that ends Collins's nearly three decades in the Senate and makes Jackson the first Democrat to represent Maine in the Senate since 1995.
Collins conceded in a phone call to Jackson shortly after midnight, closing a Senate career that began with her first election in 1996. She served five terms, became the longest-serving Republican woman in the Senate and chaired the powerful Appropriations Committee, surviving election after election as a moderate Republican in a state that has not backed a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. This year she was the only Republican senator seeking re-election in a state carried by Kamala Harris in 2024, and the streak finally ended.
Jackson, 58, is a former president of the Maine Senate who built his campaign on his blue-collar roots as a fifth-generation logger from Allagash, one of the most remote towns in the state. His path to the nomination was unlike any other in the country: he first ran for governor and finished third in the crowded Democratic primary in June, then was chosen by party delegates on July 25 as the replacement Senate nominee after the original nominee dropped out of the race.
The race turned on the cost of living. Fuel and home heating oil prices, pushed up during the Iran war, hit Maine's largely rural households especially hard heading into winter, and Jackson tied those kitchen-table costs directly to the Republican record in Washington. Polling through the fall showed the race in a virtual tie, and Jackson held his early lead as the count came in through the night.
For Maine families, the change is concrete: the state gives up Collins's seniority and the Appropriations gavel that steered federal money to Maine, and sends a first-term senator to Washington instead — one who campaigned on lowering heating and fuel costs for households that heat with oil. Jackson's win also adds to the Democrats' new Senate majority, which the AP declared earlier in the night, and he takes office in January.
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