CBS News poll finds voters split on state v. national focus in tied Maine Senate race

Anyone who’s walked its rugged coast or skied in its mountains knows Maine can get windy.
But right now Maine’s Senate race seems a bit insulated from the national political winds — which otherwise seem to favor the Democrats — at least enough to keep incumbent Republican Susan Collins in a tied race with Democrat Troy Jackson in a state that otherwise has a Democratic-leaning electorate.

Collins is drawing enough voters and enough of Maine’s Democrats, while she is bolstered by those who say they’re voting more on state matters than national ones, to keep the race at a tie.

And she has an edge on who would bring back more federal funds to Maine.

Jackson’s challenge is that Collins peels off one in five voters who disapprove of Trump — a rate higher than what Republican congressional candidates get nationally.

Jackson’s backing, in turn, is driven by those who think Collins is too much in agreement with President Trump, as well as by voters specifically opposed to tariffs, by those trying to give national Democrats control of the Senate and by those prioritizing change over experience.

A sizable 10% of voters say they could still change their minds — another dynamic that underscores that this could still break either way.

Even when voters think Jackson’s policies would make them financially better off, Collins gets almost one in five of those voters, too.

Overall, Maine’s voters do feel Trump’s policies have hurt the Maine economy. Jackson wins most of those who do.

But long-time service isn’t entirely working against Collins, even if it’s an “anti-incumbent” year: Collins does especially well among voters who say they’ve voted for her multiple times in the past. 

Jackson may be feeling the effects of the primary season: four in 10 Democrats and most independents wish someone else were the Democratic nominee.

Jackson also runs behind the Democrats’ gubernatorial nominee Hannah Pingree, as Pingree’s lead in the governor’s race hews much more closely to the state’s overall partisan lean. (Kamala Harris won the state.) Pingree gets some of the voters who are splitting their tickets to back Collins.

This CBS News/YouGov survey was conducted with a representative sample of 1,114 registered voters in Maine interviewed between September 23rd -October 1, 2026. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race and education based on  U.S. Census data, as well as to 2024 presidential vote. The margin of error is ± 4.7 points for registered voters.

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