The Maine Senate Race: A Critical Test for the Abortion Rights Movement

Maine's upcoming midterm election is shaping up to be a defining test for America's abortion rights movement. At the center of it all is Republican Senator Susan Collins — who cast the pivotal vote confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the justice who later helped overturn Roe v. Wade. This marks the first time Collins has faced voters since federal abortion protections were struck down.

A Race That Shouldn't Be This Close

By conventional logic, this contest should be a foregone conclusion. Maine leans reliably blue, has a strong tradition of supporting abortion rights, and the current political climate tilts toward Democrats. Yet the race between Collins and Democratic challenger Troy Jackson is essentially a coin flip.

That paradox reveals just how complicated American electoral politics can be: even when voters hold clear positions on an issue, unseating a deeply entrenched incumbent is extraordinarily difficult. Abortion is rarely anyone's top-listed issue — yet it has become the invisible throughline of the entire race.

Maine's electoral system also provides crucial context. Maine is one of a handful of states that use Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV), where voters rank candidates by preference. If no candidate clears 50% in the first round, the last-place finisher is eliminated and their votes redistributed according to second-choice selections, until someone reaches a majority. The system tends to favor moderate candidates — and Collins, who has long cultivated a "bipartisan" image, stands to benefit from it. Maine also allocates its electoral votes by congressional district (one of only two states, along with Nebraska, to do so), giving it a unique swing-state quality in presidential elections and amplifying national interest in this Senate race.

The Strategy Behind $6 Million in Ads

Maine has become the largest advertising target for Planned Parenthood in this election cycle. Democrats have reportedly poured nearly $6 million into abortion-related television and streaming ads.

The logic of reproductive rights strategists is straightforward: voters may not rank abortion as a top priority in ordinary times, but reminding them of Collins's vote for Kavanaugh — and her repeated alignment with Trump — is enough to shift their decision.

The ads repeatedly feature voters saying things like, "I voted for her, and I regret it." One person described how Collins had promised to protect women's abortion rights, how they had believed her — only to watch her vote to confirm Trump's judicial nominees time and again. This narrative of betrayal is precisely the emotional lever Democrats are trying to pull.

Planned Parenthood is the largest nonprofit reproductive health organization in the United States and one of the most powerful political forces in the abortion rights movement. Its political action committee spends tens of millions of dollars each election cycle supporting friendly candidates and opposing incumbents seen as threatening reproductive rights. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in a 6–3 decision — returning abortion legislation to the states — it handed Democrats a central mobilization narrative for every election that followed. Tying Collins directly to Kavanaugh, and by extension to the Dobbs ruling, is the standard playbook for converting an abstract Supreme Court confirmation process into concrete ballot-box accountability.

Collins's "Results" Card

Rather than running from her record, Collins has leaned into it. She insists her support for abortion rights is genuine, while emphasizing nearly three decades of Senate seniority — including her role as Appropriations Committee chair and her track record of securing federal funds for small towns like Eastport.

Polling reveals the contradiction at the heart of Maine voters' minds: they credit Collins for channeling federal money to their state, yet resent her green light for Kavanaugh. The central question this November is which consideration carries more weight at the ballot box — tangible local benefits, or the values betrayal that one vote has come to symbolize.

The Challenger's Evolution

Democratic candidate Troy Jackson's own trajectory is striking. Sixteen years ago, he said abortion should "never be legal." He says he has since changed his mind, listened to others, and as Maine Senate president co-sponsored one of the most expansive abortion rights bills in the country.

"I firmly believe abortion is healthcare, and it's something I'll fight for every single day," he said. That transformation from opponent to champion can be read either as a genuine evolution in thinking — or as fodder for attack.

What Will Actually Decide the Race

The real irony is that abortion may not be the decisive factor after all.

Analysts suggest the outcome may hinge more on voter anger over gas prices and attitudes toward Trump than on the abortion question itself. Abortion rights advocates have more modest hopes: mobilize enough base voters to show up, and convince a slice of the electorate to vote against Collins — even if they're not particularly enthusiastic about Jackson.

A Contest That Transcends Maine

Whatever the result, the significance of this race will extend far beyond Maine's borders.

If Collins loses, abortion rights groups will declare that voters finally held her accountable for her role in ending Roe, and they'll carry that narrative into every future race involving Republican candidates. If Collins wins, it won't mean Mainers have stopped caring about reproductive rights — it will confirm a harsh political reality: that even over something as consequential as the fall of Roe, punishing an incumbent for restricting abortion access remains extraordinarily hard to do.

Strategically, abortion rights advocates view this race as a pressure test for their "accountability narrative." Since the Dobbs decision, reproductive rights organizations have been building a framework: Republican senators who voted to confirm conservative justices should face electoral consequences for the eventual overturn of Roe. If that argument lands in Maine, it becomes a replicable attack template for future cycles — especially against purple-state Republicans who voted to confirm Trump's Supreme Court nominees. If Collins survives on the strength of local results and a moderate persona, it signals a clear ceiling on the "judicial accountability" strategy, forcing the movement to reassess how it allocates resources and frames its message.

Additional Context

The Senate Appropriations Committee, which Collins chairs, is one of Congress's most powerful bodies, overseeing the allocation of roughly $1.7 trillion in annual discretionary federal spending. For a sparsely populated, smaller-economy state like Maine, holding an Appropriations seat means securing federal dollars far exceeding what population alone would warrant — spanning ports, fishing industries, defense installations, healthcare subsidies, and more. This is the classic expression of "incumbency advantage": long-serving legislators bind federal resources to personal political identity, creating genuine tension for voters weighing values against self-interest. Eastport, Maine's easternmost town with a population of roughly 1,300, is frequently cited as a concrete example of Collins looking out for remote communities that would otherwise be overlooked.