Susan Collins trailed in nearly every 2020 poll and won anyway. Will she win a sixth term in Maine on Nov 3?
60% of users predicted YES — the community missed this one. 10 predictions cast.
Democrat Troy Jackson defeated six-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins in Maine's U.S. Senate race, with the Associated Press and CBS News calling the contest for Jackson and Collins conceding on Nov. 4, 2026. The loss ended Collins' three-decade Senate tenure; she had served since 1997 and was the chamber's last Republican incumbent from a state that backed Kamala Harris in 2024.
Jackson, a logger and former Maine Senate president, became the Democratic nominee in late July after original nominee Graham Platner withdrew following a sexual-assault allegation. His campaign tied Collins to President Trump's agenda, arguing she had grown too aligned with national Republicans despite her moderate reputation at home. Collins had survived close races before, including a 2020 contest that many polls had also predicted she would lose.
The flip was one of several Democratic Senate pickups in the 2026 midterms that delivered the party majority control of the chamber. Jackson is the first Democrat to represent Maine in the Senate since Collins first won the seat in 1997.
The community got this one wrong: 60% of predictors had forecast Collins would win a sixth term, but she instead became one of the cycle's most notable incumbent losses, following a late narrowing of her lead in the campaign's final weeks.