Susan Collins

Jack Brogan is an 18-year old aspiring political strategist from Freeport. He is headed to the University of Rhode Island in the fall to study political science.

For over a decade, Maine Democrats have been hooked on a single electoral myth: to win statewide, the party must run a northern, rural candidate tailored strictly for the 2nd District. It is easy to see how this consensus formed.

After Paul LePage’s two controversial terms in the Blaine House and Donald Trump splitting Maine’s electoral votes in 2016, Janet Mills built a broad coalition to reclaim the governorship in 2018 and 2022. That success convinced party strategists that northern appeal was the silver bullet for every statewide race.

The fatal mistake is assuming the playbook that won back the Blaine House works against Susan Collins. New England’s last remaining Republican senator is an electoral anomaly, and treating her like a standard District 2 Republican is a guarantee to lose.

By trying to out-populist Collins in the north, Democratic strategists and out-of-state consultants continuously misdiagnose where her real power lives. Collins does not survive six terms in the Senate because voters in Aroostook County blindly back their “hometown girl.” She survives because she commands a quiet, stubbornly resilient coalition of suburban split-ticket voters in Cumberland and York counties and coastal Maine — the exact voters Democrats take for granted.

Look at the brutal mechanics of 2020. Joe Biden won Maine statewide by 9.1 percentage points with 435,000 votes, and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree cruised in District 1 with over 62%. Yet Sara Gideon finished nearly 88,000 votes behind Biden, losing to Collins by 8.6 points.

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On paper, Gideon was the ideal candidate for Collins’ electorate — polished, highly educated and culturally aligned with suburban living rooms. But she was the wrong candidate to take on Susan the candidate.

Collins successfully tagged Gideon as an out-of-state transplant from Rhode Island, neutralizing her appeal. Tens of thousands of high-turnout voters in Falmouth, Kennebunk and Scarborough checked the box for Biden and Pingree, but drew the line at replacing “Our Senator.”

Eight years post-Kavanaugh, Collins’ local brand remains resilient among these soft-splitters. They dislike national Republican drama, but they will not fire her without a candidate who makes them feel completely comfortable.

Following the primary fallout and exit of Graham Platner, the party’s rapid pivot to former Senate President Troy Jackson at the convention offers a stark contrast in background to Gideon. Jackson — a fifth-generation logger from Allagash — could not be more different than a suburban transplant.

But while his background is the polar opposite of Gideon’s, the voters he naturally garners are also the polar opposite of the voters needed to win. Running strictly on a rural labor tour leaves southern Maine’s suburban middle ground wide open for Collins to claim.

To actually win, Jackson needs to meet Southern Maine voters on their home turf. That means broadening his pitch beyond an anti-establishment labor crusade. In living rooms across Cumberland and York, voters watching the unpopular war in Iran, rising gas prices and federal chaos aren’t looking for a populist brawler. They want stability, predictability and a steady check on executive overreach. Connecting Jackson’s economic message to tangible household pressures — like prescription drug prices and housing costs — gives these voters a pragmatic reason to trust him.

The urgency could not be higher. With Hannah Pingree commanding a double-digit lead over Bobby Charles in gubernatorial polls, southern Maine will turn out in massive numbers for Democrats this November. But if strategists treat the Senate race as a rural-only campaign, Maine risks repeating 2020: watching a Pingree run up massive margins in District 1 while the Democrat taking on Collins fails to keep pace.