Dem
54
GOP
46
We really don't know if the voters of Maine were served well by scheduling four U.S. Senate debates in the span of just 2 weeks. How much is the race going to evolve in such a short timeframe? It might have been useful if each of the four debates had a distinct focus, like "foreign policy," "Donald Trump," "cost of living" and "social issues." But, as far as we can tell, they did not.
Consequently, each of the debates has tended to hit the same basic beats. That was especially true in the final matchup (which can be viewed here), as each of the candidates seems to have perfected what we might call their "stump debate." Sen. Susan Collins' (R-ME) basic pitch is that if she wins, she'll pork everyone in Maine, thanks to her seniority and her leadership of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Meanwhile, people shouldn't worry about her voting with Donald Trump, since she's a maverick who rebels against her party more than any other senator.
Troy Jackson's basic pitch is that he is a fifth-generation logger, who has logged in Maine just like four generations of his family did before him, because that is what it means to be a fifth-generation logger like he, fifth-generation logger Troy Jackson, is. This, in theory, puts him more in touch with the needs and concerns of regular Mainers, as compared to the out-of-touch, billionaire-serving Collins. Also, he consistently reiterates that Collins has cast key votes in favor of Trump's position, particularly passage of the big, beautiful bill and confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. Jackson takes the position that it does not matter much if you rebel against your party when your vote is not decisive.
And that actually leads us right into what was surely the worst moment of the night for Collins. Early on, one of the moderators asked Collins to name a notable occasion during which her vote against Donald Trump was decisive. And her answer was... the confirmation of Pete Hegseth. She told a somewhat vague story of how she organized a consortium of Republican members to defeat the nomination, but that one member's change of heart derailed the effort. The moderator followed this with the obvious observation: "And... so that didn't actually change the outcome." Collins had to concede that was true, but insisted it almost did. It's hard to imagine how anyone could have done a better job than Collins did of emphasizing that her acts of rebellion rarely actually matter.
Also rough for Collins was when the debate turned to the Iran War. In the previous debates, she was already hit on her general support for Trump, Trump's budgets, and thus Trump's war. This time around, however, it occurred to Jackson to point out that if Collins has so much power over the federal purse strings, the way she keeps bragging she does, she could be working to cut off funding for the Iran War, and she's not doing so. Collins had no real response to this, other than to say that Trump should have had a better plan for the war. She also thinks the long-term solution to the Middle East is for the U.S. to produce more of its own oil, so it doesn't need Middle Eastern oil. This is not only a pretty silly answer (the U.S. doesn't actually get much oil from the Middle East), it's also a variant of "drill, baby, drill," which is a signature Trump policy. Not the best way for Collins to put distance between herself and the President.
The worst moment of the night for Jackson, meanwhile, came when Collins ambushed him with the observation that he says he doesn't take money from billionaires, but that he's gotten some donations from billionaires. The Democrat tends to look like a deer in the headlights most of the time, and it gets even worse when he is caught by surprise. He hemmed and hawed a bit, admitted that the claim was true, and said that he has donated some of the money to charity. As to the rest, Jackson insisted that he will not be the tool of billionaires, and that they should know that, and that "[I]f they want to give me money during this campaign, I guess that's up to them."
The last question of the night was an interesting one; the candidates were asked who they would put on a "Mount Rushmore of Maine." Both answers were certainly on-brand; Collins went with Civil War hero and politician Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (though she struggled to remember exactly what he did to become a war hero) while Jackson went with firebrand Frances Perkins, who served as Franklin D. Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor, and who was the first woman Cabinet member. Neither named any other names, which is for the best, because people tend to misunderstand the concept of Mount Rushmore anyhow. It's not really supposed to be a "top four," it's supposed to be four prominent people who represent different facets of American culture and history. Chamberlain and Perkins are both very appropriate choices; keeping in mind the need for breadth, the other two should be Edmund Muskie and maybe... Stephen King? Though you could also make a strong argument for Dorothea Dix, George Mitchell, Margaret Chase Smith, L.L. Bean or Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
As with the other debates (particularly the third one), this debate was also quite testy. The snottiest moment came when a protester stood up and shouted "A.I. data centers are destroying our climate! They're poisoning our water!" Collins decreed that the person was clearly a Jackson supporter, Jackson replied "Oh, shut up. I don't even know that kid," and Collins rolled her eyes. By Maine standards, that's a major throwdown.
When we wrote up the first of these debates, all the way back on October 7, we observed that "Barring a major screw-up by one candidate or the other, the effect of these tilts is only going to be felt around the margins." The polling would seem to support that conclusion. Since the debates began, there have been three polls of the race, two from Republican houses, one from a nonpartisan house. All three had Jackson up by an identical margin, 49% to 47%. This is entirely in line with the polls taken before the debates, such that Jackson's aggregate average went from leading 49.2%-47.1% (+2.1%) to... leading 49.2%-47.1% (+2.1%). Of course, the last debate or two don't show up in the polls yet, but it's hard to see how they might move the needle much. (Z)