As we’ve been tracking for months, the public polling has been trending in a poor-to-disastrous direction for Republicans heading into the midterm elections. In key Senate races, it’s been downright gruesome.
Democrats need to net four seats to gain control of the upper chamber after November, which would effectively put an end to any semblance of a Trump agenda and more or less permanently freeze the confirmation process for his judicial and other nominees. As things stand, Democrats are favored to hold a possible swing seat in Georgia and gain another in North Carolina. That would be “plus one.”
They’re struggling more than expected to lock down seats they control in Michigan, New Hampshire, and Minnesota, where Republicans are running strong or well-known candidates against weak or extreme opposition, but all three races still tilt blue, particularly in this national environment.
Democrats are also virtually tied or slightly leading, according to polling averages, in a quartet of red states President Donald Trump carried by 11 or more percentage points just two years ago: Alaska, Iowa, Ohio, and Texas. If they can win even half of those seats, with all else being equal, which is hardly a given, that would put them at “plus three.” They’d be just one win shy of wresting the majority away from Republicans. In the plausible event of a 50-50 split, Vice President JD Vance would provide the tiebreaking votes.
The most obvious path to that final needed victory, at least in theory, runs through Maine. Trump lost that state in 2016, 2020, and 2024 by mid-to-high single-digit margins each time. It has a slight maverick streak, but it’s a blue state. A red seat in a blue state in a blue year should be relatively low-hanging fruit for a coveted Senate gain.
But that seat is occupied by centrist Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who has earned a reputation as a battle-tested survivor. Democrats were convinced they finally had her number six years ago, especially after her mature, fact-based, and courageous vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Despite all that angry noise, Joe Biden at the top of the ticket — he won the state by 9 points — and literally every public poll predicting a victory for her challenger, Collins prevailed. “Nevertheless, she persisted,” one might say.
It wasn’t particularly close in the end. All of the polling projected a modest but comfortable win for the Democrat in the race, then Collins romped by 9 points, the same margin Biden enjoyed in the other direction. This cycle, Democrats are again trying to solve the Collins riddle. Their first attempt ended in disaster, as they forced aside their elected nominee following a Nazi tattoo revelation and credible abuse allegations from multiple women.
Plan B is a man named Troy Jackson, who is laden with his own creepy and bizarre baggage. From his explosive temper, including a police-involved incident and allegedly throwing a water bottle during an argument with a female colleague, to the apparent fact that he’s a blood relative, second cousin, of his longtime romantic partner and mother of his children, Jackson is an unusual character.
He’s also an extremist. He’s attracted the enthusiastic backing of the Democratic Socialists of America, whose agenda for the country is truly radical. The feeling, it seems, is mutual. Jackson publicly thanked the DSA for its endorsement of his failed gubernatorial campaign this past spring — before he became the emergency do-over Senate candidate, right after his party nullified another inconvenient election.
The DSA supports an insane $200 trillion agenda for a country that is already deeply in debt. They explicitly favor open borders, defunding the police, and abolishing prisons. They have their man in Jackson.
Relatedly, Jackson also attracted the approval of explicitly anti-American and pro-terrorist streamer Hasan Piker, who has said the United States “deserved 9/11” and is worse than al Qaeda. Piker is enamored with Jackson to the point that he was apparently willing to set aside his stated distaste for “inbred” populations, an ugly smear he’s deployed against Orthodox Jews.
Citing the “rage” sweeping Maine, Piker demanded a fittingly extremist replacement for the Nazi tattoo-wearing accused sexual assailant he’d previously supported. “Troy Jackson is him,” Piker gushed. Unsurprisingly, Jackson has rather suddenly developed a fixation on loathing Israel and dutifully regurgitating the “genocide lie,” which is the price of admission in hard-left politics these days — and certainly a prerequisite for securing the endorsement of the “America deserved 9/11” guy.
Jackson seems to change his colors to seek and attain power, having run for office as a Republican, an independent, a Democrat, and now a DSA-aligned Democrat. Meanwhile, Collins just trucks along with almost superhuman consistency. She recently cast her 10,000th consecutive Senate vote, having never missed one in nearly two decades.
She’s arguably the most centrist member of the chamber on either side of the aisle, which has inevitably frustrated partisans on both sides at times. But she is who she is — and doesn’t pretend to be anything else. In a somewhat surprising development, Collins actually leads in a New York Times poll published last week, albeit narrowly. If past is prologue, that’s a good sign for her, even if the wider political moment feels dreadful for her party.
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With fall weather arriving, Democrats are trying to gin up a corruption “scandal” based on a dodgy story from a left-wing outlet that doesn’t come close to delivering the goods against her. Among those laboring to hype it up? You guessed it: Jackson’s ally and endorser, the “America deserved 9/11” influencer.
Choose wisely, Maine.