Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, lost her seat of three decades on Wednesday to Troy Jackson, a Democratic former state legislator, according to a New York Times projection. The defeat ended the run of the sole sitting Republican member of Congress from New England.
Ms. Collins rose to the upper echelons of the Senate as she defied the leftward tilt of her state, but ultimately could not overcome voters’ strong resistance to President Trump in what became one of the nation’s costliest, hardest-fought and most closely watched Senate races.
The victory adds to a new Democratic majority in the Senate and vindicated the party’s long-held hopes of ousting Ms. Collins, despite a tumultuous race in which intraparty divisions had threatened to dash their chances.
Democratic leaders’ initial chosen candidate, the moderate Gov. Janet Mills, failed to gain traction and suspended her campaign, and months later the party primary winner, Graham Platner, dropped out after allegations of sexual assault surfaced.
Mr. Jackson entered the race in July, when he was chosen after Mr. Platner’s exit.
The defeat of Ms. Collins, the chairwoman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, will lessen Maine’s influence in Congress given her seniority and longtime role as a more moderate Republican linchpin on much of the significant legislation in the Senate. She has directed tens of billions of dollars in federal funding to her state for everything from fire stations to shipbuilding.
But opposition to the Trump administration ran deep in Maine, where the president’s tariffs on Canada had a major impact and disrupted an economy that relies on a significant amount of commerce crossing the border.
“It has been the honor of my life to serve the people of Maine in the United States Senate,” she said in a concession statement. “I’m proud of all I have been able to accomplish for our state and for our country in the past 30 years.”
Ms. Collins battled the perception that she too often yielded to Mr. Trump, even though she was the member of her party who broke with him most often in the Senate. Some Maine voters who had repeatedly supported Ms. Collins said they would not do so this year, hoping to create a more formidable obstacle to the president and his policies.
Ms. Collins was the only Republican senator running for re-election this year in a state Mr. Trump lost to Kamala Harris in 2024.
Mr. Jackson, who lost Maine’s Democratic primary for governor before becoming the Senate nominee, questioned the influence of Ms. Collins, portrayed her as an enabler of Mr. Trump and promised to be an impediment to the Trump administration. Both were from largely rural Aroostook County in the less populated northern reaches of the state.
Ms. Collins, 73, was a former Senate aide and a Small Business Administration official under President George H.W. Bush. After losing a race for Maine governor in 1994, she won the Senate seat in 1996 and has held it since despite furious Democratic efforts to unseat her. She has not missed a roll-call vote in her tenure, a formidable achievement, and this year cast her 10,000th vote.
In the Senate, she has been an essential part of a shrinking group of more centrist Republicans who were willing to occasionally break with their party and, in recent years, with Mr. Trump on health and economic policy as well as a handful of nominees.
She was a critical vote to prevent Senate repeal of the Affordable Care Act in 2017 and opposed the nomination of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Her breaks with the White House have angered the president, who often lashed out at her.
But to Democrats and Mr. Jackson, it was not enough. They accused her of bowing to the president and opposing him only when her vote would not seal the outcome. Ms. Collins, who supports abortion rights, came under particularly heavy fire from Mr. Jackson and Democratic activists for her vote in 2018 to confirm Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, who later joined a Supreme Court majority in overturning Roe v. Wade.
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