WESTBROOK, Maine —
Republican Sen. Susan Collins and her Democratic challenger, Troy Jackson, faced off in a Maine Senate debate, repeating a host of familiar attacks in the contest that polls show as a close race.
In the hour-long debate hosted by PolitiFact partner WMTW-TV, Collins and Jackson sparred over abortion, tariffs, the Iran war and how consistently her voting has aligned with President Donald Trump’s agenda.
At times, the debate became testy. Referring to a ProPublica article about her dealings with a defense contractor who later pleaded guilty to crimes related to political contributions, Collins called the allegations by the investigative journalism outlet “absolutely false.”
At another point, Jackson accused Collins of profiting from the Iran war, an allegation she called “outrageous” and said he should apologize for.
The candidates demonstrated one moment of unity, however, when Collins agreed with Jackson that higher earners should pay more Social Security taxes — even though a pro-Collins political action committee has aired ads saying that very position means Jackson supports “raising taxes on your Social Security.”
PolitiFact senior correspondent Amy Sherman joined Maine’s Total Coverage just hours after the debate to discuss claims made by the candidates. You can watch the interview with Sherman in the video player at the top of this page. The morning after the debate, PolitiFact chief correspondent Louis Jacobson joined Maine’s Total Coverage to discuss different claims. You can watch the interview with Jacobson in the video embedded below.
Below are fact-checks of several key claims during the debate.
Abortion
Jackson: Collins “put people like Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court that took away Roe v. Wade.”
Collins voted for Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh but it’s misleading to draw a direct line between Collins and Roe v. Wade’s end.
Collins also voted to confirm justices who ruled in the minority to uphold Roe, including Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, both of whom were nominated by President Barack Obama.
When the Senate was deadlocked in 2018 over whether to confirm Kavanaugh, Collins gave a 43-minute floor speech about her decision to vote yes. Collins said that she wanted to protect abortion rights and Kavanaugh told her that Roe v. Wade’s precedent is rooted in the Constitution. Courts had ruled in favor of abortion for decades.
Collins’ vote was a tie-breaker, but even if she had voted against Kavanaugh, then-Vice President Mike Pence was poised to break a tie in favor of Trump’s nominee.
In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 with Kavanaugh agreeing with the majority to uphold a Mississippi law that banned abortion after 15 weeks, with the majority opinion saying, “the Constitution makes no express reference to a right to obtain an abortion.” The decision reversed Roe v. Wade, ending nearly 50 years of federally protected access to abortion and returned power to states to set their own laws.
Collins said she was disappointed in the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling but stood by her vote for Kavanaugh.
Collins: Jackson, “from the year 2000 until he ran for the House seat in 2013-2014, was very anti-choice” on abortion policy.
This is accurate.
Jackson has changed his view on abortion rights. In 2003 and 2010, he received perfect voting scores from the anti-abortion Maine Right to Life and, in 2011, he voted for a bill to create criminal penalties for actions against an “unborn” child.
Over the past decade, however, Jackson has aligned himself with the Democratic Party’s position in favor of abortion rights. In recent years he received 100% ratings on his legislative record from a Planned Parenthood group and, in 2023, voted to ensure state abortion access following the Supreme Court ruling to reverse Roe v. Wade.
Jackson told The New York Times in July that, growing up Catholic, he had “a hard time getting to a place I felt comfortable.”
Electric rates
Collins: “It’s under Troy’s leadership that electric rates in Maine became the fourth highest in the nation.”
That’s exaggerated.
Jackson served as Maine’s Senate president from 2018 to 2024. In 2018, Maine ranked eighth nationally for electric rates, behind Hawaii, Alaska, Connecticut, New Hampshire, California, Vermont and New York.
By 2024, Maine was still in eighth, tied with New York. The seven states with higher electricity rates were Hawaii, California, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Alaska and New Hampshire.
That said, although Maine’s national ranking remained steady, prices in the state did surge during that period, from 13.44 cents per kilowatt-hour to 19.66 cents per kilowatt-hour. That’s a 46% increase over a six-year period.
Jackson’s actions don’t explain most of that gain, however.
Collins’ campaign said Jackson voted in 2023 against a bill called LD 1347, which aimed to curb the growing cost of Maine’s Net Energy Billing renewable energy promotion program. Jackson’s campaign said he subsequently voted for a different bill, LD 1986, that overhauled the program; it was signed into law.
In any case, the state’s public advocate said in an October report that a typical Central Maine Power customer’s monthly household bill rose from about $91 in October 2020 to about $157 in October 2026, an increase of 72%.
The office said that “no single cause explains it” and cited rising New England natural gas prices as the largest reason, followed by higher distribution costs that largely came from storm damage infrastructure repair expenses.
The program to promote renewables “added about $9” to customers’ bills, the state’s public advocate wrote. “Focusing on that issue alone misses about $57 of the $66 increase.”
Iran war
Jackson: “Sen. Collins and her husband are making money off of this war.”
Collins’ husband, Thomas Daffron, owns some defense and energy stocks, but it is a small fraction of the couple’s overall assets. Collins’ net worth is between $4 million and $10 million, the Maine Morning Star reported.
Daffron owns stock in two U.S. military defense contractors, Boeing and RTX. According to the couple’s 2025 financial disclosure, filed in May 2026, Daffron held between $15,001 and $50,000 in stock in each company.
The financial disclosure also shows that he owns between $15,001 and $50,000 in ConocoPhillips stock.
A Collins spokesperson told the Maine Independent that her husband’s investments are managed by a third-party adviser and that no individual stocks had been bought or sold from his account in more than three years.
Collins’ voting record
Jackson: “Sen. Collins is voting with Donald Trump 96% of the time.”
This is close.
A CQ Roll Call analysis of her votes between the start of Trump’s second term and the beginning of October found that Collins voted with Trump’s position 92% of the time. During Trump’s first term, she sided with Trump on about 90% of votes.
The analyzed votes are a fraction of all votes that Congress takes.
Only two GOP senators had lower percentages: Rand Paul of Kentucky at 85% and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska at 90%.
The 96% figure comes from a Bangor Daily News article that cited CQ Roll Call data but is now more than a year out of date.
Collins has voted contrary to Trump’s position 76 times during his two terms, ranking second to Paul with 103. Among these were some high-profile measures. In 2026, Collins sided with Democrats to block a nearly $1.8 billion weaponization fund for Trump allies and voted in favor of a resolution directing the removal of U.S. armed forces from hostilities against Iran.
In Trump’s first term, Collins voted in favor of keeping the Affordable Care Act, which Trump was trying to scuttle.
Collins replied to Jackson’s statement, saying, “If you look at all of the votes that were cast, I have voted with the administration about 72% of the time.”
Senate voting data can be calculated in different ways and Collins’ campaign said she was citing a different and broader way of calculating than the CQ Roll Call analysis.
One Big Beautiful Bill Act
Collins, when asked why she voted to advance Trump’s domestic policy bill when she objected to its cuts to Medicaid and rural hospitals: “I created the $50 billion rural healthcare fund.”
Health policy experts have said those dollars will not erase the cut from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Collins introduced the Rural Health Transformation Program to provide $50 billion over five years for states to invest in rural health care. Maine in late July announced it would release $30 million through the federal program for rural hospitals across the state.
KFF, a national health care policy think tank, estimated that the $50 billion could mitigate but will not fully offset $137 billion in Medicaid cuts states, combined, will see over 10 years.
Maine projected in July 2025 that 31,000 MaineCare expansion members are at risk of losing coverage because of new work requirements.
Nine Maine hospitals or maternity wards had announced closures in the past decade as of 2025, the Maine Beacon reported, reflecting a national trend. Hospital administrators say the closures are due to the difficulty in hiring, declining births and reimbursement rates that don’t cover the cost of services.
Jackson: Collins “advanced the Big, Beautiful Bill out of committee.”
That’s wrong.
Collins chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee, but the legislation did not go through that committee for a vote. It was part of the budget reconciliation process, which allows legislation to pass with a simple majority in the Senate.
When the Senate took up the bill, Collins voted on a motion to proceed and said if the legislation didn’t change to her liking, she would reject it. Jackson’s campaign later clarified that the motion to proceed is what he meant to reference, not a committee vote. She voted against the bill at final passage, citing its cuts to Medicaid as the reason she objected.
PolitiFact Staff Writers Samantha Putterman and Cami Henry-Seymore, PolitiFact New York reporter Conor Amendola and News Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.