Thirty years of Susan Collins in the United States Senate ended just after midnight in Maine. The Associated Press has called the state's Senate race for Democrat Troy Jackson, the former president of the Maine Senate and a fifth-generation logger from Allagash, and Reuters reports that Collins herself conceded — telephoning Jackson just after midnight on Wednesday, according to Jackson's campaign, to accept a defeat that gives Democrats one of the biggest pickups of the 2026 midterms and removes the longest-serving Republican woman in the Senate.
Source: Associated Press — Maine Senate results
In the Associated Press count, Jackson had 291,682 votes to Collins' 258,254 — a lead of 33,428 votes — with 409 of Maine's 644 precincts reporting, about 63.5 percent of precincts and an estimated 72.3 percent of the total vote counted. CNN projected Jackson the winner shortly before midnight, and the concession call followed within the hour, spreading through the Maine Democratic Party's watch party at the Holiday Inn by the Bay in Portland, where Jackson then took the stage.
Source: Reuters via Duke FM
The end of an era in Maine politics
Collins was first elected in 1996 and, as NPR notes, entered this race as the longest-serving Republican woman in the Senate, with a long history of defying national political headwinds in a state that has consistently voted for Democrats at the presidential level — Maine has not backed a Republican for president since 1988. Her defeat makes Jackson the first Democrat to represent Maine in the United States Senate since 1995, ending a streak the Democratic Party had spent decades and enormous sums trying to break.
Source: NPR via WESA
The race was one of the most expensive of this year's midterms: Democratic- and Republican-aligned groups spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars on advertising, according to data from AdImpact cited by NPR. Collins ran as the chamber's great moderate — chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, a post she argued let her bring federal money home to Maine — and, in the final Senate debate in October, she warned voters that Jackson 'is going to be an automatic vote for the Democratic position no matter what' and that Washington has lost too many centrists willing to work across party lines.
Source: NPR via WESA
A logger, a late start, and an extraordinary campaign
Jackson, 58, took an unusual path to the nomination. He initially campaigned for governor and finished third in the crowded Democratic primary in June; Democrats then selected him as their Senate nominee in July to replace Graham Platner, a former Marine and oysterman who dropped out after facing rape allegations, which he denied. From that late start, Jackson leaned on his blue-collar roots — a fifth-generation logger from the remote northern town of Allagash — campaigned on universal healthcare and other populist policies, and drew the support of high-profile progressives including Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
Source: Reuters via Duke FM
Reuters reports that two economic forces did much of Collins' damage: the Iran war pushed up fuel and home heating oil prices, an especially painful issue in a largely rural state known for harsh winters, and President Trump's trade war with Canada weighed on tourism, lobstering, logging and other pillars of Maine's economy along the Canadian border. Jackson made that argument directly, telling Maine Public Radio in an October interview of Collins: 'She's losing more money than she's bringing in… We're losing a lot more; our healthcare, Iran war, tariffs. I mean, all these things are costing the state way more money than Susan Collins can ever bring in.' Democrats also attacked the most divisive parts of her record, above all her 2018 vote that was crucial in confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court; Collins has said she does not regret that vote and that she supports abortion protections.
Source: Reuters via Duke FM
Republicans entered election night holding the Senate 53–47, so Democrats needed a net gain of four seats to take control — a majority the AP has since declared for Democrats. Every Republican-held seat in a Democratic-leaning state was a target, and Collins was the only Republican senator running this year in a state carried by Kamala Harris in 2024.
What happens next
The result is a projection based on the Associated Press race call and Collins' concession; Maine's official count and certification still lie ahead, and Maine counts its federal races under ranked-choice voting, which can extend the tabulation of close contests. Jackson is due to take his seat when the new Congress is sworn in on January 3, 2027, joining a Democratic Senate majority, while Collins' tenure — begun in 1997 — closes at the end of this term, taking with it Maine's seat at the head of the Appropriations Committee and one of the Senate's last self-described centrists. For readers along the northern border and on the highways of New England, the shift also matters practically: Maine's next senator arrives owing his victory in part to anger over heating-oil prices, tariffs on Canada and the cost of the Iran war — the same pressures North American truckers and border communities have been carrying all year.