Nearly $2 million dollars donated to the victims of Maine's biggest mass shooting went into the hands of activists instead of victims
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Maine voters are in a negative mood this election season. Only 12% say their family is better off financially compared to two years ago, and more than 6 in 10 disapprove of President Donald Trump’s job performance, including 2 in 10 Republicans.
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A Fox News survey of Maine likely voters finds that mood weighs on Republican Sen. Susan Collins, as 53% are concerned she votes with Trump too much. By contrast, 46% are concerned Democratic challenger Troy Jackson is too liberal.
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Despite those views, the horse race shows the candidates tied, with Jackson and Collins at 49% apiece. All survey interviews were completed after the candidates’ Oct. 15 debate.
Collins, who first won her seat about three decades ago, is seeking a sixth term. She’s the only GOP senator running for re-election this year from a state Trump lost in 2024 (by 7 points). In 2020, Collins won by nearly 9 points.
Democrats view Maine as a must-win seat in their effort to take control of the Senate. When voters are asked about control of the U.S. Senate, 53% prefer a Democratic-led Senate vs. 45% who want the Republicans to remain in charge. While almost all Jackson supporters want Democratic control (96%), Collins supporters are more divided: 89% want a GOP-led chamber, but 9% prefer Democratic leadership.
Collins will need to overcome the energy on the left, as far more Democrats (79%) than Republicans (61%) say they are extremely interested in the election, which explains why Jackson is ahead by 16 points among that group. He’s up by 4 points among those who say they are "certain" to vote, and also carries the one in five Mainers who have already cast a ballot by a decisive 40 points. On the other hand, a slim majority plans to vote on Election Day, and they favor Collins by 12 points.
"Collins is no stranger to outrunning her party, but Democrats hold an 18-point enthusiasm advantage," says Mikaela Linder of Beacon Research, a Democratic polling firm that conducts the Fox News Poll with Republican Daron Shaw. "Trump’s job rating is 25 points underwater, and a majority strongly disapproves of him. Jackson has an opening if he can carry that momentum beyond his base and across the finish line."
Views of the president’s performance are a problem for GOP candidates in Maine. Currently, 37% of voters approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 62% disapprove, including 54% who strongly disapprove.
The candidates’ personal favorability ratings are both underwater. Views of Jackson are negative by 2 points (47% favorable, 49% unfavorable), and by 4 points for Collins (47%-51%).
Partisan vote choice varies distinctly across key groups. Voters under 45 favor Collins by 6 points, while those ages 45 and older prefer Jackson by 3. Women support Jackson by 5 points, while men back Collins by 4.
The sharpest divide is education: Mainers with a college degree pick Jackson by 23 points, while Collins leads among those without a degree by 16.
Collins is ahead among those living in rural areas by 7 points, while Jackson is the pick of the smaller number of suburban voters by 18 points.
For comparison, in 2020, Collins won both the voters living in rural areas and those without a college degree by 18 points each.
"Republicans appear to be struggling with White rural voters this cycle, and Maine is no exception," Shaw said. "GOP candidates desperately need these voters to show up, and need something like a 65-35 vote to overcome Democratic strength in urban areas."
Party loyalty is roughly even as 9 in 10 of each candidate’s party faithful back them, and the small subgroup of independents favors Collins by 13 points. Both Jackson (92%) and Collins (90%) supporters have a high degree of vote certainty.
In Maine’s gubernatorial race, Democrat Hannah Pingree leads Republican Bobby Charles by 10 points, 49% to 39%, while independent candidate Rick Bennett takes 9%.
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Unlike Jackson, whose coalition backs Pingree almost unanimously (only 8% defect), nearly one in five Collins supporters (19%) peel off to either Bennett (11%) or Pingree (8%).
Conducted October 16-20, 2026, under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with a sample of 1,689 Maine registered voters randomly selected from a statewide voter file. Respondents spoke with live interviewers on landlines (226) and cellphones (1,035) or completed the survey online after receiving a text message (428). Results based on the registered voter sample have a margin of sampling error of ±2 percentage points and for the subsample of 1,514 likely voters it is ±2.5 percentage points. Sampling error for results among subgroups is higher. In addition to sampling error, question wording and order can influence results. Sources for developing weight targets include the most recent American Community Survey, Fox News Voter Analysis, and voter file data. Weights are generally applied to age, race, education, and area variables to ensure the demographics of respondents are representative of the registered voter population. Likely voters are based on a probabilistic statistical model that relies on past vote history, interest in the current election, intention to vote, age, education, race, ethnicity, and marital status. Results among subgroups are only shown when the sample size is at least N=100.
Fox News’ Victoria Balara contributed to this report.
Charisma or cash: to win an election, candidates need at least one of those two factors. With two weeks to go until the U.S. midterm elections, Republicans are throwing everything they have into the closest states to try to climb back in polls that are unfavorable to them. They have the invaluable help of the vast sums Donald Trump raises through his Super PAC, the political action committee that pools donations coming from the ultraconservative MAGA movement.
© Alex Brandon (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
LEWISTON, MAINE – Former Sen. Joe Manchin, a longtime Democrat turned independent, took aim at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday for trying to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, calling his former party leader's efforts "crazy" as he joined Collins on the campaign trail in her high-stakes re-election race.
Collins, a moderate Republican who at times has voted against President Donald Trump and her party, is fighting for her political life as she runs for a sixth six-year term representing blue-leaning Maine in the Senate. She is the only GOP senator seeking re-election in a state Trump lost in the 2024 election.
The race between Collins and Troy Jackson, a former state Senate president, is a top flip opportunity for Democrats as they try to win back the Senate majority from Republicans in the midterm elections. The latest public opinion polls indicate a margin-of-error showdown, and the latest Fox News Power Rankings rate the race as a toss-up, as do leading nonpartisan political handicappers the Cook Political Report, Inside Elections and Sabato's Crystal Ball.
Manchin, who worked closely with Collins during his years in the Senate, was asked by Fox News Digital how his campaigning with his former colleague would sit with Schumer, the top Democrat in the chamber.
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"Chuck Schumer would not be surprised of me being with my dear friend. There is no surprise there at all. I told him he was crazy in 2020 from working against her so hard and he’s crazy now to work against her," Manchin said, as he referred to unsuccessful efforts by Democrats to defeat Collins in her re-election six years ago, and their current push to oust her.
Manchin emphasized, "This is not right. She is the soul of America. She is the soul of the Senate, and he knows he needs more Susan Collins, no matter what side of the aisle they’re on. This is ridiculous."
Fox News Digital reached out to Schumer's political team and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for a comment but did not receive a response at the time this story was published.
A former West Virginia governor who served in the Senate from 2010 to 2025, Manchin frequently broke with his party, frustrating Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as Schumer and other Senate Democratic leaders.
As he works to oust Collins from the Senate, Jackson has repeatedly tried to anchor the senator to Trump, who has seen his approval ratings in Maine and across the country drop further underwater.
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But Manchin said that Collins is "not a Trump senator. She's not a Republican senator or a Democrat senator. She's an American senator that represents her state of Maine ... the most independent minded person I've ever met."
Collins noted that "Joe and I were part of every bipartisan initiative that passed the Senate and became law during the years that we worked together ... I just so enjoy our partnership in getting things done for Maine, for West Virginia and for America."
Manchin and Collins spoke with reporters after meeting with restaurant workers and customers at Simones' Hot Dog Stand, a famed local eatery in downtown Lewiston that's been serving customers for a century. It was the first of two campaign stops in Maine's 2nd Congressional District, a key swing district.
Collins and Jackson last week faced off on the debate stage for the fourth and final time. The senator used the debates to showcase how her Senate seniority has helped her deliver federal funding for Maine. Meanwhile, Jackson used the showdowns to position himself as an outsider who understands the struggles and frustrations of working-class voters.
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Jackson won a special nominating convention in late July to claim the party's Senate nomination, which was left vacant after primary winner Graham Platner ended his campaign following allegations he raped a woman he previously dated. Platner denied the allegations but dropped out.
Jackson, who earlier this year unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, had campaigned alongside Platner during the primary campaign.
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Collins, meanwhile, has a history of surviving Democratic efforts to unseat her.
Six years ago, she trailed Democratic challenger Sara Gideon, the Maine House speaker at the time, but Collins won re-election by nearly nine points while former President Joe Biden carried the state by a similar margin.
Fox News' Kailey Schuyler contributed to this story.
During a portion of an interview with CNN aired on Monday’s “Inside Politics,” Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Troy Jackson could not say what percentage he wanted to tax billionaires at and said that “I’m sure we’ll figure out what
The post Troy Jackson: ‘We’ll Figure Out’ What Percent I Want to Tax Billionaires ‘When I Get There’ appeared first on Breitbart.
With everyone and his brother predicting that a blue tsunami will wash over the Senate as well as the House, I want to write something contrarian.
This way, if the Republicans do hang on to the Senate, I’ll get credit for defying the conventional wisdom. And if they don’t, I won’t get kicked out of the punditocracy – folks will just say well, he put a lot of caveats in there.
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The truth is, I don’t know who is going to capture the upper chamber, and neither do you.
And neither do all the pontificators and speculators online or on the air.
I do know the GOP is pouring tens of millions into contests they might otherwise lose, giving their people – even scandal-scarred Ken Paxton – a huge advantage on the airwaves in the final two weeks. But money doesn’t always move voters once they’ve made up their minds in this era of early voting.
Is Maine’s Susan Collins liked enough to hang one more time against aggressive Troy Jackson (and thankfully not weirdo Graham Platner), when Donald Trump shouts every day ‘Pretend I’m on the ballot’?" We got it, Mr. President.
Josh Turek is an Iowa legislator and also a wheelchair basketball player who suffers from spina bifida. His GOP opponent, Rep. Ashley Hinton, says she doesn’t want "endless wars" but welcomes a Trump visit.
She’s talked about such issues as open borders and transgender surgery. Turek has focused on the Iran war and soaring health premiums because Congress failed to amend the Affordable Care Act.
In nearby Kansas, where Trump campaigned yesterday, Democrat Adam Hamilton is the founder of a Methodist mega-church, which would seem like a big plus in that conservative state, but some Dems are turned off by the religious aspect. Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, an obstetrician who served in the Army Reserves, was hurt by a New York Times report on him suing patients who were behind on their bills.
By the way, did you ever think you’d see the day when the Republicans just gave up on North Carolina and steered their money elsewhere (conceding the win to former Gov. Roy Cooper)?
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So I can conclude three things:
Many of these races have 1-or-2 point "leads," which is within the margin of error, and polling is often inaccurate in an off-year election.
The GOP is playing defense in ruby-red states–Trump in Kansas?—which is why Democrats are increasingly confident this is their big year.
And, in the famous Tip O’Neill saying, all politics is local.
There may be a mega-church guy or a man in a wheelchair or ex-Alaska congresswoman Mary Peltola, a former tribal judge who’s for "Fish, Family, Freedom," but who former staffers say they heard using awful slurs.
How on earth do you handicap races with so many toss-ups?
Of course, Republicans want to make the country believe that all Dems are like Michigan socialist Abdul el-Sayed, who, when asked whether he’d provide military aid if Israel was under attack, says he would rather spend the money at home.
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I still think the Democrats will need to have Vegas luck to win enough Senate races to take control. They also have to defend their own turf. But (escape hatch here) I’m not saying it couldn’t happen.
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