Susan Collins isn’t so much a US senator as she is a political unicorn. The Republican, 73, is running for a sixth term in the decidedly blue state of Maine amid a growing Democratic tsunami fueled by President Donald Trump’s cratering job approval ratings. She’s campaigning as an influential powerbroker who compromises with the White House and cuts backroom deals for Maine and its strapped citizens. That defies political fads that celebrate outsiders, frown on Washington dealmaking and lately, scorn aging incumbents.

Collins is nonetheless positioned to fend off a spirited challenge from Democrat Troy Jackson, a one-time logger who hails from GOP-leaning northwestern Maine. It would be yet another unlikely victory that, this time around, could preserve the GOP’s Senate majority.

Days before the midterm elections, Collins was touting private conversations with Energy Secretary Chris Wright that she credited for the Trump administration’s commitment to release 315,000 barrels of home heating oil from federal reserves into New England on the cusp of winter. “That should help ease some of the shortages that have driven up prices beyond what most Mainers can afford,” Collins told reporters, after touring the New Balance manufacturing plant here in Norway.

During a swing through rural, western Maine, the senator also cut the ribbon on a new county emergency management center in tiny Farmington, bragging — her word, not mine — about $2.4 million in federal taxpayer dollars she funneled to the project; local officials claim the money prevented a burdensome property-tax hike. Thirty miles down the road in Rumford, an old mill town, Collins toured a 100-year-old hospital poised for major renovations, thanks to $6.4 million in crucial financing she secured through spending authority she enjoys as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“She saved this hospital right here. It’s a great hospital,” Wayne Shorey, a 62-year-old retired truck driver, told me while leaving an appointment at the hospital, just as Collins’ campaign bus was arriving. He and his wife voted early for the incumbent and never once considered supporting Jackson. Collins has obtained nearly $1.5 billion in “congressionally directed spending” (earmarks, basically) for the Pine Tree State over the last five years, per figures provided by the senator’s campaign.

In her dogged focus on delivering unparalleled constituent services to overcome a structural political disadvantage, Collins resembles Senator Jon Ossoff. Or rather, the Georgia Democrat resembles Collins; he entered the Senate as she began her fifth term. But there is a key difference between the two political insiders: Ossoff rails against the so-called rigged system in Washington, as though he has nothing to do with it. Collins embraces her role in the historically messy and unsatisfying process of governing and treats the process with a kind of reverence.

It makes sense, then, that her campaign slogan is simply: “our senator.”After 25 years of covering campaigns, I know what confidence — and wishful thinking — look like. Collins and her team are genuinely optimistic, despite political headwinds the senator concedes are the strongest she’s faced in six general elections.

That confidence is born of the stunning victory Collins pulled off in 2020. Trailing Democratic challenger Sara Gideon by healthy margins in every public poll throughout the entirety of the campaign, the senator won by 9 percentage points, even as Joe Biden defeated Trump in Maine by the same amount. It’s also not lost on Collins and her campaign that this year she is polling more competitively in Maine than are GOP incumbents and open-seat candidates for Senate in reliably red states Alaska, Kansas, Ohio, Texas and possibly Iowa.

But my Republican sources emphasize that private surveys they trust show a margin-of-error contest. A majority of Mainers view Trump unfavorably and think the state’s economy is in bad shape. The RealClearPolitics average shows Jackson, a 58-year-old former state legislator, with a narrow lead of 1.4 points. But with a 49% vote share, the Democrat is just shy of the magic “win” number. So, Collins absolutely could — and might — lose. Blame Trump.

Democratic voters in Maine have long crossed the aisle to support the senator or at least tolerated her service with begrudging appreciation. It’s how Collins survived six years ago — and she hasn’t changed. It’s just that for many grassroots liberals, those feelings of bipartisan goodwill are being overwhelmed by an escalating fear and loathing of Trump. His personal conduct, and mismanagement of the economy and foreign affairs, are worse than even the lowest expectations many staunch Democrats had for his second presidency and far more troubling than their obviously negative recollections of his first term.

“I think her number’s finally up. She hasn’t served Maine for years,” Democratic voter Cindy Hammond told me. The retiree was among a dozen protesters who picketed Collins’s ribbon-cutting in Farmington to show their support for Jackson.

When I asked Hammond why this election would end differently for the senator than the previous five, she didn’t hesitate: “Her relationship with Trump.”The oft-repeated charge from the left is that Collins is only moderate when it doesn’t count; when it matters, she’s with the president, the same as any MAGA acolyte in Congress. The senator’s 2018 vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is still a sore spot, especially with women voters.

Lately, those complaints extend to Trump’s unprovoked trade war with Canada, a development that particularly resonates in Maine because of the state’s close cultural and economic ties to the US’ North American neighbor. Many Mainers are descended from French Canadian immigrants. And manufacturing and other industries here have seen their bottom line suffer after losing unfettered access to commodities and goods that originate across the border, as was supposedly ensured by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that Trump signed with the two partner countries six years ago.

Collins bristles at accusations that she’s been silent in the wake of this economic pain. The senator highlights her wholesale rejection of Trump’s bullying of Ottawa and behind-the-scenes work convincing the White House to grant tariff exemptions on imports critical to Maine’s economy, including concrete, pulp for paper manufacturing and rock salt.

“I have led the opposition to the imposition of Canadian tariffs. Maine and Canada’s economies are deeply intertwined,” the senator told reporters in Lewiston, after stopping for breakfast at Simone’s, a family-owned hot-dog joint popular with politicians in Maine. “I’m negotiating with the administration to try to get further relief.”Of course, Collins dodged when I asked if she was frustrated with Republican inaction generally.

The GOP would have the numbers, combined with resistance from a majority of congressional Democrats, to approve veto-proof legislation undermining, if not scrapping, Trump’s costly tariffs. But most Republican lawmakers have used the party’s majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives to shield Trump from action that would disrupt his trade policies. “You’re hearing more and more members of the Republican side of the aisle speak out against the Canadian tariffs,” the senator said.

“I’m hearing a growing realization of how harmful these tariffs are.” (Encouraging, I suppose.) To bolster her image as an independent-minded Republican cultivated over decades, Collins in the closing days of the 2026 campaign has called on an old friend for help: Joe Manchin, the Democrat-turned-independent former senator from West Virginia. He joined her on the trail recently to make the case that Maine would be foolish to oust Collins now, just when the state, indeed, the country, needs her most.

“I hope you know what you have — and you have a gem,” he told a gathering of New Balance employees after touring the Norway shoe plant with his old colleague.

Collins’ admittedly necessary strategy of attracting a multipolar coalition is 180 degrees different from Jackson’s.

Her challenger appears intent on juicing the heavy Democratic vote in and around Portland and along Maine’s coast — the population responsible for keeping Maine blue all these years. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and progressive champion campaigned with Jackson recently; so did Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democratic Socialist who grassroots liberals hope will mount a 2028 presidential bid. But there have been questions about Jackson’s viability since party insiders selected him to replace disgraced primary winner Graham Platner as their Senate nominee.

Jackson wasn’t well-known statewide when he entered the campaign in late July under unusual circumstances, and Democratic insiders here acknowledged that he’s been playing catch up ever since. And as I’ve written, Jackson backs a government takeover of the health care system and abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, left-wing positions that could trouble all but the most left-wing Democratic voters. Granted, any Democrat was going to have a tough time against Collins. And that’s not just my analysis.

“She has cultivated an image, carefully, and consistently, of being a moderate, of being independent,” Brownie Carson, a former state legislator who served with Jackson, told me when we chatted after a “Women for Troy” surrogate event in Augusta, the state capital.. “I think this is going to be a squeaker.”There’s a lesson in there for aspiring and current candidates. Run on your strength, year in and year out. Be who you are (or who you want voters to believe you are) and don’t chase, or run from, presidents and polling data. Even if it doesn’t work for Collins on Nov. 3, she’ll have gotten 30 years out of it. Not a bad run.