By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-10-07 16:28:55 | Updated at 2026-10-07 17:15:17
1 hour ago
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Democratic challenger Troy Jackson clashed over President Donald Trump, the cost of living, and abortion on Oct. 6 in the first debate of one of the country’s most closely watched Senate races.
Jackson, a former Maine Senate president, used the hour-long debate in Portland to tie Collins to Trump, repeatedly saying she votes with the president 96 percent of the time.
Collins, who is seeking a sixth term, argued that her seniority and chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee have delivered for Maine.
She blamed the state’s high costs on policies passed in Augusta while Jackson led the state Senate.
Maine is the only state with a Republican senator that then-Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024.
Jackson became the Democratic nominee after Graham Platner
withdrewfrom the race in July following several abuse allegations, which Platner denied.
Asked about rising gas prices and record diesel prices, Collins pointed to her work capping insulin at $35 a month and speeding approval of generic drugs.
She said Maine’s electricity rates, housing costs, and property taxes, which she said are among the highest in the country, were the result of “Augusta’s failed policies under the failed leadership of Troy Jackson.”
Jackson said Maine’s affordability problems trace to Collins being unwilling to stand up to Trump.
He cited tariffs, the war in Iran, and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Republican-backed tax and spending law Trump signed in July 2025, which he said Collins helped advance.
Collins said she voted for the motion to begin debate on the bill, which passed 51–49, then voted against its final passage.
She said she opposed the final bill because of its Medicaid cuts, and that allowing it to reach the floor let her write a $50 billion rural healthcare fund into it.
Maine Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson speaks at a town hall on Sept. 13, 2026, in Biddeford, Maine. Joseph Prezioso/Getty Images
Jackson also said Collins voted five times to support the Iran War before she began voting against it.
Collins opposed a war powers resolution in March, saying in a statement that passing it would “send the wrong message to Iran and to our troops.”
She has since voted for several resolutions, most recently a Democratic-led
resolutionthat failed 49–50 on Sept. 24.
Collins said in the debate that she has voted nine times to end the war.
The senator also disputed the 96 percent figure. She said it comes from a study that examined only about 30 percent of Senate votes, and that an analysis covering 90 percent of votes put her backing of Trump at 72 percent.
CQ Roll Call’s vote study, which counts only votes the president took a clear position on, most of them on nominees, found Collins backed Trump’s position 94.6 percent of the time in 2025.
Jackson said other counts put her at 94 or 95 percent, which he called “far too often.”
Asked whether she would stand with Trump if he visited Maine, Collins said she did not expect him to come.
“I’m not exactly his favorite senator,” she said.
Jackson opened by noting that the debate fell eight years to the day after Collins voted to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who later joined the majority that overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established a constitutional right to abortion.
When the candidates questioned each other, Jackson asked what it would take for Collins to admit the vote was wrong.
Collins said she judges nominees on their qualifications and disagrees with how Kavanaugh ruled on Roe.
Asked whether Kavanaugh lied when he told her Roe was settled law, she said she did not believe he lied, “but I think he should not have said that it was settled law.”
Collins said she is the only Republican senator to vote for recent Democratic presidential nominees to the court, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
She also said that until 2013, Jackson opposed abortion even in cases of rape or incest or when a woman’s life was at risk.
Jackson did not respond to that claim during the debate, but in his opening statement, he said that as state Senate president he fought to protect abortion access.
The candidates were also split over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after ICE agents fatally
shotJohan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford on July 13.
Jackson said agents “murdered” Guerrero, a 25-year-old father.
He called for the agency to be disbanded and faulted Collins for backing what he said was $70 billion for ICE.
Collins called the shooting horrific and said it showed ICE needs further reform. She pointed to funding for body-worn cameras and for the agency’s inspector general, who she said is investigating Guerrero’s death.
She said abolishing ICE would end its investigations into child exploitation and drug smuggling, and that its funding is about half the amount Jackson cited.
The two candidates meet again on Oct. 8 in the second of four scheduled debates, and both sides claimed victory after Tuesday’s debate.
Jackson won “because he made clear who he’s fighting for,” his campaign manager, Hilary Barrett, said in a statement after the debate.
Republican National Committee spokeswoman Kristen Cianci said in a statement that Jackson had “fallen back on mudslinging and virtue signaling to the far left.”
She said Mainers “will be chomping at the bit to reelect Senator Susan Collins.”
