Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Troy Jackson, the Democratic former president of the State Senate who is challenging her in the midterm elections, faced off on Tuesday night in their first of four debates, exchanging barbs over President Trump, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, abortion rights and health care.
It’s not often that an incumbent agrees to multiple debates against a challenger. But Ms. Collins appeared to be betting that Mr. Jackson, who is known as a bit of an uneven campaigner and has never run in a statewide general election, would stumble.
Instead, he held his own against a five-term senator in a duel that was, at times, quite testy.
Here are five takeaways from the debate in Maine, a crucial state in the battle for Senate control.
Collins was on the defensive over Trump.
At times, Ms. Collins seemed to have two opponents on the debate stage: Mr. Jackson and Mr. Trump.
Throughout the night, Ms. Collins tried to rebut Mr. Jackson’s argument that she had failed to stand up to the president even as she often expressed grave concern about his policies.
She criticized Mr. Trump’s tariffs, said his immigration enforcement action needed more oversight and, at one point, proudly boasted, “I am not exactly his favorite senator.”
Ms. Collins sidestepped a question about whether she would stand with Mr. Trump if he were to visit Maine, which the president suggested this week that he might do. “I don’t think that President Trump is going to come to Maine,” she said.
Mr. Trump lost Maine in the past three presidential elections.
And her vote for Kavanaugh was under the spotlight.
From the start, Mr. Jackson made clear that he planned to target Ms. Collins over her vote exactly eight years ago to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.
“Would you trust her to pick the next Supreme Court justice?” he asked, in his opening statement.
Ms. Collins, one of just two Republican senators who support abortion rights, has repeatedly said she does not regret her vote to confirm the justice. But the senator stressed that she did not agree with Justice Kavanaugh on Roe and was instead more aligned with the liberal justices she also voted to confirm.
And she tried to flip the attack back on Mr. Jackson. “There’s only one of us on the stage who has always been pro-choice, and that’s me,” she said, a reference to Mr. Jackson’s opposition to abortion rights earlier in his political career.
Mr. Jackson responded, “I just think it’s incredible she won’t admit to being wrong.”
There were stark disagreements over ICE.
When immigration came up, Mr. Jackson went on the offensive, targeting an issue that has been a sensitive one for Ms. Collins since a Colombian man, Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Maine in July.
“He’s not here now because Senator Collins would not push back against ICE,” Mr. Jackson, who supports abolishing the agency, argued in one of the debate’s more tense moments.
Ms. Collins called the shooting “horrific” and said it demonstrated that ICE needed “serious reforms.” But the senator noted that she had helped secure funding for training for ICE agents and called for an impartial investigation.
“You cannot abolish ICE,” Ms. Collins said, asking rhetorically, “Do you really want to abolish an agency that is responsible for deporting violent criminals?”
Mr. Jackson replied, “You don’t put more money into an agency that is killing people across this country.”
They clashed over the value of Senate seniority.
Ms. Collins promoted her seniority in Washington as a major benefit for her home state that helped her bring federal funds and jobs to Maine.
Mr. Jackson, however, insisted that she had failed to leverage her power in a way that helped working people in Maine. Again and again, he sought to blame Ms. Collins for Trump administration policies that resulted in higher costs for housing, gas, groceries and other essential goods.
Ms. Collins tried to defend her record with statistics and explanations about the workings of the Senate and the limitations of her power.
She described herself as the “most outspoken opponent of the tariffs with Canada” and highlighted her success exempting road salt and cement from the duties.
Mr. Jackson framed those efforts as too little and too late.
“Mainers can’t afford to pay their bills with a press release or a strongly worded letter,” he said. “What about everything else? We can’t eat road salt.”
They are just getting started.
The night set off a dizzying nine days in which Ms. Collins and Mr. Jackson are scheduled to debate three more times.
The furious schedule may suggest that neither candidate believes that they have established a clear lead, that Mr. Jackson is hungry to introduce himself to Maine voters after entering the race in a rare summer substitution, and that the experienced Ms. Collins is equally eager to take him on.
The next debate is scheduled for Thursday.
Taylor Robinson contributed reporting.
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