Troy Jackson, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks at the Maine Democratic Nominating Convention, Saturday, July 25, 2026, in Bangor, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty) From now until election day, Maine will be at the center of the political universe. The outcome of that state’s U.S. Senate contest will likely determine whether Democrats have a chance of wresting control of Congress’s upper chamber from the Republicans.
When Maine voters mark their ballots, they will know two things: one, that incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has directed millions of dollars to the state, and two, that reelecting her guarantees Republican control of the U.S. Senate.
The battle between Collins and Democrat Troy Jackson is more than a contest between two well-qualified candidates. It is a fight between the old politics versus the new politics.
The progenitor of the old politics was the late House Speaker Tip O’Neill (D-Mass.), who coined the phrase “all politics is local.” O’Neill’s aphorism prioritized the importance of earmarking federal dollars to a given member’s congressional district or state. And as members gained seniority, they grew ever-closer to the pinnacle of power by becoming chairs of powerful congressional committees.
Collins is a beneficiary of the old politics. First elected to the Senate in 1996, she currently chairs the all-important Senate Appropriations Committee. With that post comes millions of dollars Collins has directed toward Maine. One pro-Collins advertisement boasts that she has acquired $190 million for the state’s rural hospitals, ending with the tag line, “Call and thank our senator, Susan Collins, for delivering this lifeline to Maine.”
Replacing the old politics is a new politics whose maxim is that “all Politics Is National.” In this politically polarized era, blue states become bluer, and red states become redder. Maine is no exception. George H. W. Bush was the last Republican to win there, in 1988. In 2024, Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump in the Pine Tree State by 7 points. As the Northeast has become a Democratic bastion, only Maine and Pennsylvania are now represented by Republican senators.
Movement figures like Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have become leaders in the new politics. Trump represents the grievances of older rural and non-college educated voters who have seen their economic prospects decline. Sanders wins support from young, college-educated and urban voters who rail against the federal government’s inability to lessen today’s economic disparities.
Jackson is a warrior in the Sanders movement. Beginning his political journey as a Republican in a rural part of Maine, in 2000, he unsuccessfully sought a seat in the Maine state House. Four years later, he switched party allegiances and won as a Democrat. In 2008, he was elected to the state Senate, eventually rising to become majority leader and later Senate president. Eight years later, he supported Sanders in his unsuccessful campaign against Hillary Clinton.
After Graham Platner’s campaign imploded this summer, Jackson quickly mobilized his supporters and won the Democratic nod for Senate. Accepting his nomination, Jackson told the Democratic delegates that Collins “helped deliver enormous tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy on our backs. And she voted to confirm [Justices Brett] Kavanaugh and [Neil] Gorsuch, the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade.”
Jackson aspires to be more than a junior member of the Senate; he wants to be a disrupter. He has pledged not to support Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) as Senate Democratic leader. He favors abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement — a potent issue after Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was killed in Biddeford, Maine. And he supports overhauling the healthcare system and replacing it with Medicare for All.
Maine voters are caught between the old politics and the new politics. Listen to Frank Bragg, an 85-year-old retired physician. A Republican-turned-Democrat who once supported Collins, Bragg says he appreciates the monies Maine’s senior senator has brought to the state. But Bragg is supporting Jackson, arguing that his Democratic ballot is about “standing up for the country.” Summoning the memory of Margaret Chase Smith, the Maine senator who had been the first to condemn Joseph McCarthy, Bragg said Collins “had multiple opportunities to be a Margaret Chase Smith and stand up for what’s right. And she’s gone along with Trump.”
After millions of dollars spent on television advertisements and political mailers, the race is likely to be decided by the “double haters” — those who dislike Collins but don’t much like Jackson either. Trump has attacked Jackson as a “lunatic” and a socialist. Jackson has labeled Collins a tool of the ultrawealthy and a rubber stamp for Trump.
Collins is counting on split-ticket voters to propel her to victory. But as the old politics of localism gives way to the new politics of nationalism, split-ticket voters are rapidly becoming an endangered species. Maine is no exception in this regard.
John Kenneth White is a professor emeritus at The Catholic University of America who writes on Substack. His latest book, coauthored with Matthew R. Kerbel, is titled “Democracy on the Edge: The Trump Elections and the Future of American Politics.”
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