A super PAC affiliated with Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) says it’s getting a full refund after a vendor mistakenly placed ads attacking her Democratic opponent, Troy Jackson, in the wrong state.
Defending Main Street PAC earmarked around $25,000 for digital advertising that was accidentally spent in Portland, Oregon, instead of Collins’s home state of Maine, whose largest city is also Portland.
The ad campaign was placed through a media vendor and has since been pulled, according to a spokesperson for Defending Main Street. Google Ads confirms that the commercials ran for four days, from Oct. 8 to Oct. 11, and targeted zip codes in Oregon and Washington state.
“During a recent independent expenditure, our media vendor mistakenly placed approximately $25,000 in digital advertising in the Portland, Oregon media market instead of Portland, Maine,” said the spokesperson. “The error was identified, the ads were immediately stopped and corrected, and the vendor is refunding Defending Main Street the full amount of the misplaced spend. No donor funds will be lost as a result of the vendor’s error.”
The commercial is just a drop in the bucket relative to the more than $250 million both parties have poured into Maine, one of the top Senate battlegrounds of the 2026 cycle.
Republicans have invested nearly $150 million into the state as of last week, according to AdImpact. Democrats have contributed almost $110 million.
The digital ad in question focuses on the cost of living in Maine and links Jackson, the Democratic nominee for Senate, to a series of tax hikes passed during his tenure as a state legislator.
“Maine can’t afford Troy Jackson and all his taxes,” the ad says.
Jackson’s allies have used recent ads to focus on the high energy costs due to the war in Iran and Collins’s vote to confirm Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade.
SUSAN COLLINS AND TROY JACKSON SPAR OVER PUBLIC CORRUPTION ALLEGATIONS IN SECOND DEBATE
The sparring comes as both candidates prepare for their third of four debates before Maine voters on Tuesday night.
Collins, who has represented Maine in the Senate for three decades, is running for her sixth term in November.