Maine's Senate race was mired in controversy after Democratic nominee Graham Planter withdrew following multiple scandals.
Page B52From§Eachthe morning edition — 4 November 2026
Susan Collins declares independence from Trump four weeks before Maine declares it from her.
As it ran on the front
Susan Collins' Senate seat died Tuesday, three decades old, after a long battle with timing.
It is survived by a line delivered in a Tuesday debate on October 7. Troy Jackson, the Democrat who would go on to unseat her, told Collins she was "like an arsonist who helped set the fire, and then she wants credit for bringing a cup of water to put it out" — this about the $50 billion relief fund she had touted for a healthcare crisis Jackson said she'd paved the way for. The line survives her. It will be read aloud at debates she is no longer invited to.…
…(cont) Between those two facts sat a third. On September 22, ProPublica published a story Common Dreams described as uncovering a "sprawling pay-to-play operation" centered on Collins; Jackson responded by saying she "delivered millions in taxpayer dollars for a corrupt donor bankrolling her campaign" and called it "corruption of the highest order." Three weeks after that, on October 14, Jackson stood in Biddeford and noted that Collins had voted to funnel tens of millions of dollars to ICE a little over a month before one of its officers killed 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero on that town's streets. "Senator Collins paid for the bullets at President Donald Trump's command," Jackson said. "Now she wants credit for not pulling the trigger."
By Tuesday the malarkey had run out of road: five terms, one debate, one shooting, one relief fund that arrived after the fire, and one distance from the president that landed 28 days before the votes were counted and not a day sooner. Troy Jackson, 58, is Maine's senator-elect. Susan Collins is survived by the sentence her opponent built for her, which outlasted the career it described.
In lieu of flowers, read the ProPublica story before the next senator cites a number the record can't source.
“Thirty years, and the big move she makes is distance, and she makes it one debate before the election, after ICE already shot somebody in her own state. That's not independence, that's a receipt dated too late to cash. She's out, the ICE money's already spent, and the twenty-five-year-old they killed in Biddeford doesn't get a recount.”
“Senator Collins broke with her own party on the Iran war and the Canada tariffs, right there in the debate, "not exactly his favorite senator" — that's independence, that's exactly the kind of senator Maine says it wants. The timing's not the point, the substance is the point — though I guess the substance was a $50 billion fund for a crisis she helped cause and a vote that funded the agency that then killed somebody in her state, so maybe the timing is kind of the point. Did I say that? That doesn't sound like me.”
The receipts
Jackson, 58, who became the party's nominee only in July, will succeed Collins, who was seeking her sixth term representing the state in the Senate.
Democratic nominee toppled the five-term GOP incumbent in one of the most hard-fought midterm contests US midterm elections – live updates Track live results from all 50 states Tell us: what do you want to know about the midterm election results? The Democrat Troy Jackson has won Maine ’s US Senate race, toppling five-term Republican…
· ‘Not exactly his favorite senator’: Susan Collins distances herself from Trump in Maine debate from the morgue, 7 Oct 2026
· In Senate Debate, Troy Jackson Calls Susan Collins an 'Arsonist' Who Brings a 'Cup of Water' to the Fire from the morgue, 7 Oct 2026
· 'Corruption of the Highest Order,' Says Troy Jackson After Explosive Susan Collins Report from the morgue, 22 Sep 2026
· 'Senator Collins Paid for the Bullets,' Troy Jackson Says of ICE Killing in Maine from the morgue, 14 Oct 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.