Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine turned Tuesday night’s first Senate debate into a clinic on how to handle a Democrat who shows up with a playbook and not much else. Collins fended off attacks from her Democrat challenger Troy Jackson and landed enough counterpunches to make the evening genuinely uncomfortable for him.
Jackson came in with one goal: staple Collins to President Trump and hope it sticks. Collins had a different plan. She reminded the audience that she has “voted against my party more than any other senator on either side of the aisle,” threading the needle between defending her record and making clear she’s nobody’s rubber stamp.
the Maine Senate debate matchup covered everything from ICE to the president’s “Big, Beautiful” budget bill, and Jackson managed to stumble on most of it.
Jackson went after Collins over her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, asking rhetorically in his opening remarks whether voters should trust her to pick the next justice. Collins turned around and hit him from the other direction, noting that Jackson used to identify as an anti-abortion Republican before reinventing himself as a progressive. “There’s only one of us on the stage who has always been pro-choice, and that’s me,” she said. That’s what you call a two-for-one.
Jackson tried blaming Collins for inflation and unaffordable housing. She pushed back and pointed out that Jackson himself presided over state-level policies that made affordability worse. When he claimed she had never been without health care, she didn’t mince words. “Troy, you’re just out-and-out wrong on that,” she said flatly. Short, clean, done.
The night got better from there. Jackson was pressed to say whether he’s a socialist Democrat and responded by going on a rambling tangent about Elon Musk. Collins, meanwhile, pinned him on two positions that don’t exactly scream “Maine mainstream,” namely his support for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and his opposition to requiring voters to show ID. Those aren’t attack ads. Those are just his positions.
Collins is 73 and Jackson is 58, and yes, the age difference showed at moments. But she was sharp, on point, and clearly knew what she was doing. The New York Times‘ Lisa Lerer put it plainly after the debate: “Democrats underestimate Susan Collins at their peril. In 2020, she was re-elected by nine points, even as President Trump lost the state and amid a huge amount of spending by Democrats.
Jackson had come into the race late after the original Democrat nominee, Graham Platner, dropped out over various scandals. Polling shows Jackson is competitive, so Democrats are feeling good. Maybe they should ask Platner how that confidence worked out for him. Three more debates to go, and if Tuesday was any preview, Collins is going to be ready for all of them.
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