Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spent part of her October campaigning in Maine, not New York — stumping for the Democrat trying to unseat one of the Senate’s longest-serving Republicans. It’s the latest sign of how much outside attention Maine’s Senate race has pulled in before today’s vote.
What Ocasio-Cortez and Jackson told the crowd
On October 22, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) joined Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson in Portland for “Students vs. Billionaires,” an hour-long town hall hosted by the progressive group More Perfect University, according to Newsweek. Taking questions from Maine college students on health care, transgender rights and foreign policy, Ocasio-Cortez pointed to Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ voting record, saying, “In the votes that allowed this trillion dollars in health care cuts to go to the floor, Susan Collins voted yes.” She told the crowd Jackson “believes in our reproductive freedom” and has “stood up for our equal pay.” Jackson, a former Maine Senate president, returned the praise, calling Ocasio-Cortez “exactly what I want in my government.”
She’s not the first national Democrat to make the trip
Ocasio-Cortez followed Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who had already campaigned for Jackson earlier in the fall, according to Political Wire, citing Politico — part of a wider pattern of national progressive figures turning up in a state that only has about 1.4 million people, in what the report called the “final sprint” of a closely watched race.
The race she stepped into
Collins has held her Maine Senate seat since 1997, and she’s outperformed public polling before: in 2020 she trailed Democrat Sara Gideon in survey after survey, then won with more than 50 percent of the vote. This year’s polling has been tighter than that stretch suggested. An InsiderAdvantage survey of 1,200 likely voters taken October 13 and 14 put Jackson ahead 49 percent to 47 percent, and a Washington Post/George Mason University poll of 800 likely voters taken September 30 through October 5 had Jackson up 50 percent to 46 percent. A Suffolk University poll of 500 voters taken October 8 through 11 also showed Jackson narrowly ahead, 49 percent to 47 percent. Republicans currently hold the Senate 53-47, meaning Democrats would need to flip four seats to take control, since Vice President JD Vance breaks ties.
What Collins’ campaign says
Collins’ campaign has pushed back on the national attention paid to her challenger, telling Newsweek that Jackson is “spending his time with far-Left progressive office holders,” while describing Collins as “an incredibly effective advocate for health care.” Collins voted against the One Big Beautiful Bill Act itself, though Democrats have criticized her for earlier procedural votes that helped advance it toward passage.
What happens next
Maine voters decide the race today. Whichever way it goes, the amount of national star power that showed up for a single Senate seat this fall — and how close the late polling turned out to be — says something about how closely both parties are watching Maine, long after the campaign buses and the student town halls are gone.