身穿红色外套的共和党参议员苏珊·柯林斯在缅因州阿鲁斯图克县。
Sen. Susan Collins, in red coat, in Aroostook County, Maine.
索菲亚·阿尔迪尼奥 摄，供《华尔街日报》使用 霍尔顿，缅因州——共和党参议员苏珊·柯林斯像自2002年以来每次竞选连任那样，以一次穿越缅因州人口稀少的最北部地区、她的家乡阿鲁斯图克县之旅，结束了她迄今最艰难的一场参议院竞选。
Sofia Aldinio for WSJ HOULTON, Maine—Republican Sen. Susan Collins ended her toughest Senate race as she has had in each reelection campaign since 2002, with a swing through Maine’s sparse, northernmost reaches, in her native Aroostook County.
在毛毛雨中，柯林斯的竞选大巴在霍尔顿一家家族经营的保险公司外作最后一次停靠。霍尔顿是该县最大的城镇，柯林斯在2020年曾以约40个百分点的优势赢下这里。镇书记员凯莉·万普勒表示，截至中午已有555人在霍尔顿投票，她说投票率堪比2024年总统大选。
In the drizzle, Collins’s campaign bus came to a final stop outside a family-owned insurance company in Houlton, the county’s largest town and which Collins won by around 40 percentage points in 2020. Town clerk Khylee Wampler said that 555 people had voted in Houlton by noon, turnout levels that rival the 2024 presidential election, she said.
柯林斯押注，几十年积累的善意——加上她的竞选团队对民主党对手特洛伊·杰克逊举止的攻击——能让她超越预测中的“蓝色浪潮”。在一家咖啡馆喝着加了一泵糖浆的绿茶时，她对一群老支持者表示，至今仍难以释怀在辩论中被杰克逊要求“闭嘴”。杰克逊则在该州人口稠密的波特兰地区另一端度过这一天，在投票站停留造势。
Collins is betting that decades of accumulated goodwill—plus her campaign’s attacks on Democrat rival Troy Jackson’s demeanor—can elevate her above a predicted blue wave. While sipping a green tea with a pump of sweetener at a cafe, she told a group of longtime supporters that she still wasn't over being told to “shut up” by Jackson during a debate. Jackson spent the day in the opposite corner of the state, stopping at polling locations in the heavily populated Portland area.