Neil McCabe: Collins Shows How Senate Races Stay Local

Democrats are on the attack in the 2026 midterms as they expand the map, specifically targeting seven Senate seats and 66 House seats.

As the battle for control of the Senate continues to break for Democrats, they are focused on six states President Donald J. Trump won easily in 2024, in addition to Maine: North Carolina, Ohio, Alaska, Iowa, Texas and Florida.

Significantly, three of those states — Ohio, Iowa and Florida — are Obama-Obama-Trump-Trump-Trump states.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has committed $40 million for these seven pickup targets and three defenses: Georgia, Michigan and New Hampshire.

Of those, the Democrats need not spend a dime in Georgia. Sen. T. Jonathan Ossoff raised $81 million through the second quarter compared to Rep. Michael A. Collins Jr.’s $5 million.

Although the conventional wisdom is that the party out of the White House does well in a non-presidential year, it is not as solid a trend in Senate races as it is in House races.

Predictably, Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins is running as the pragmatic independent that has been her brand since she won her first term in 1996.

Collins is a Republican by culture and family tradition, as the state was for many generations a GOP stronghold, and her father and uncle were GOP officeholders.

Much of Collins’ appeal has nothing to do with politics. As a girl, she picked potatoes on her family’s farm and other farms while growing up in Caribou, the state’s northernmost city.

Collins also won the opponent lottery.

Her first challenger was the cosplay oysterman Graham Platner, whose gritty talk and scruffy face were straight from Central Casting. Platner worked hard with the help of Morris Katz, the political guru for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Katz created the Platner narrative and imagery, which the left-wing media amplified, all the while suppressing Platner’s aggressive sexual behavior with women.

When things got too hot, such as when The New York Times interviewed one of his ex-girlfriends, Katz went on the attack. The guru pushed Platner’s wife forward, then accused Republicans of interfering in a man’s marriage.

When it emerged that Platner once posted about his observation as a bartender that blacks do not tip well, the left circled the wagons to keep it close.

It was not until one of Platner’s ex-girlfriends accused him of repeatedly slipping off his raincoat in the midst of intimacy that the Democratic leadership and donors backing his bid pulled the ripcord.

Democrats replaced Platner with Troy Jackson, a former president of the state Senate and a self-described fifth-generation logger.

As if it were not enough that the logger replaced the oysterman to challenge the potato picker, Jackson checked another Maine box by having two children with his second cousin, whom he never married.

Hey, we all have our needs.

Maine is an Obama-Obama-Clinton-Biden-Harris state, but like Nebraska, Maine’s congressional districts deliver their electoral votes separately in presidential elections.

Of the two districts, Maine-01, anchored in the south by Portland, has followed the statewide tally in the last five presidential cycles, but Maine-02 is a different story.

Maine-02 is actually Obama-Obama-Trump-Trump-Trump, like Ohio, Iowa and Florida.

This dynamic was significant enough for Rep. Jared F. Golden not to seek another term as the House Democrat representing the most Republican district.

Golden’s retirement opened the way for former Republican Gov. Paul R. LePage to launch a political comeback. LePage is facing former Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap.

That race is tight, but if the hardcore conservative LePage can reboot the base, it could mean a GOP pickup in a tough year — and those voters showing up for their former governor could give Collins the cushion she needs to secure another six years.