Troy Jackson Ousts Susan Collins in Maine, Replacing 30-Year Republican Senator With a Progressive

Troy Jackson Beats Susan Collins, Ending 30-Year Senate Career

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Troy Jackson Ousts Susan Collins in Maine, Replacing 30-Year Republican Senator With a Progressive

The hard-to-beat Republican incumbent was defeated by a progressive new to the national scene as Democrats took the Senate.



Noah Hurowitz, Austin Campbell

November 3 2026, 8:02 p.m. ET

Maine Senator-elect Troy Jackson speaks at a midterm election night watch party after defeating incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in Portland, Maine, on November 3, 2026. Photo: Scott Eisen/Getty Images

The 30-year Senate career of Maine Republican Susan Collins is coming to an end.

The powerful incumbent chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee conceded early Wednesday to Troy Jackson, a progressive challenger who was virtually unknown on the national stage until his rushed elevation as the Democratic replacement candidate just over three months ago.

“A little more than 100 days ago, I stood in front of you at our convention and asked you to put your faith in a logger from Allagash,” Jackson told supporters in Portland, referring to a rapid nominating process he went through after former nominee Graham Platner dropped out. Like Platner, Jackson came from the left flank of the Democratic Party and ran a campaign focused on the concerns of working-class people in the face of a system he presented as stacked in favor of the wealthy and corporate interests.

Collins, who has represented the state since 1997, ran as an independent force in Washington able to secure critical federal funds for Mainers. But she was brought down with the baggage of the Republican brand on a night when Democrats overperformed in critical swing states and handily seized control of both chambers of Congress.

“It has been the honor of my life to serve the people of Maine in the United States Senate,” Collins said in a statement released early Wednesday. “I’m proud of all I have been able to accomplish for our state and for our country in the past 30 years.”

While Collins often presented herself as the rare Republican who breaks ranks with President Donald Trump, an analysis by Congressional Quarterly Roll Call found that her votes aligned with Trump 90 percent of the time in both the president’s first and second terms.

“We now see her failing to stand up to a brutal, irresponsible, greedy and corrupt regime,” Maine Democratic Party Chair Charlie Dingman told The Intercept. “She has not used her seniority or her power to aggressively stand in the way of that destructive presidency, and that is a serious and fundamental difference between 2020 and 2026.”

Dingman argued that Collins faced a fundamentally different political environment than she did in 2020, pointing to her vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the subsequent overturning of Roe v. Wade.