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Maine’s Senate election pits incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins against Democratic former state Senate President Troy Jackson.
Collins, first elected in 1996, is seeking a sixth term. She’s the only Republican senator from a state Vice President Kamala Harris won in the 2024 presidential election, and she has a long record of outperforming her party, winning by nine points in 2020 when polls showed her losing.
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Oyster farmer Graham Platner won the Democratic primary by a landslide in June despite a campaign troubled by controversies, but dropped out of the race a month later after sexual assault allegations emerged. A party convention then chose Jackson, a former logger whose campaign has centered on working-class economics.
— Matt Loffman
