Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Democratic opponent Troy Jackson found at least one area of agreement during their second televised debate Thursday night: they both vehemently denied offering special interests insider access or that campaign contributions influenced public policy.
Collins, the centrist Republican who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee and is seeking a sixth term, doubled down on her dismissal of a September report suggesting the longtime senator was under FBI scrutiny over pay-to-play allegations in the final months of the Biden administration.
“These allegations are absolutely false, and they’ve been proven false,” Collins said. “But Troy and [Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)] keep running false ads to try to convince you otherwise.”
Jackson, who served roughly two decades in the Maine legislature, including as Senate president, further distanced himself from a political action committee he helped lead as a state lawmaker that courted special interest groups like tobacco, gambling, and pharmaceutical companies.
“I didn’t make decisions on who and what and when we were going to take money,” Jackson said. “When we took money from a company, it meant nothing that we were actually going to support a bill.”
The exchanges occurred during the second debate of the Maine Senate race, a battleground contest that could determine control of the Senate. Both questions surrounding special interests underscored the extent to which the pair has been entrenched in politics for decades, even as Jackson presents himself as the outsider taking on the ultimate insider.
ProPublica reported last month on the preliminary steps the FBI took in 2024 to investigate campaign contributions that informant Martin Kao, the CEO of defense contractor Navatek, claimed were steered to politicians, including Collins, in exchange for millions of dollars in federal contracts. The story cited a 2019 meeting between Kao and the head of a pro-Collins super PAC and suggested that the scrutiny evaporated as a result of a Trump-led purge of the Justice Department.
Collins noted that Kao, who was facing federal charges at the time, was convicted of money laundering and bank fraud.
“He’s in jail today, where he belongs,” Collins said. “Don’t take just my word for it. The Biden administration Justice Department, the FBI, the FEC, and the judge who had to sentence this crook all found the allegations to be false.”
Jackson sought to draw a connection between the investigation’s conclusion and Collins’s votes that align with President Donald Trump.
“Sen. Collins talks about a crook. I mean, Donald Trump is a convicted felon, 34 felons,” he said. “She has no problem doing his bidding on that.”
At the center of his own questions about special interests having access or influence was Jackson’s role while in the legislature as the “principal officer” of Maine’s Senate Democratic Campaign Committee from 2017 through 2024. During that time, the group raised thousands of dollars from the tobacco, gambling, and pharmaceutical industries, as detailed by a Washington Post report. But in his Senate bid, Jackson now openly rejects corporate PAC money.
Jackson used a portion of his rebuttal to try and refocus the discussion on Collins.
“I can’t help that an organization that I actually worked with and had a real significant role in decided to take checks from people, but we certainly never had any pay-for-play scandals like Sen. Collins seems to be doing every day now,” Jackson said.
Collins said it “defies belief” Jackson was not aware of where the donations came from.
Jackson acknowledged that he was aware but that he “didn’t even set the rules … about where checks came from.”