Maine
A five-term Republican incumbent against the Democratic nominee, a logger and former president of the Maine Senate.
Troy JacksonDemocrat
Susan CollinsRepublicanSusan Collins is seeking a sixth term as the only Republican senator from a state the president lost in 2024 — and the last Republican-held Senate seat in New England.
Troy Jackson, a logger from Aroostook County and former president of the Maine Senate, was chosen as the Democratic nominee at a party convention on July 25, 2026, after Graham Platner, who won the June 9 primary, withdrew on July 10.
Latest race coverage
The newest Maine press coverage naming either candidate or the Senate race, straight from the collection. Headlines link to the original reporting.
Matched on headline text across the five monitored Maine outlets, newest first, duplicate republications collapsed. Topic labels come from the CAP classifier; the newest items may not carry one yet. Group tags are dictionary matches over the headline and the opening of the article, from the same term families as the social-group set.
Maine's media agenda, live
Pilot data from our Maine news collection — articles coded automatically into Policy Agendas topic categories, refreshed every few hours. Race-scoped views land with the media data set.
What Maine coverage is about
Share of all policy coverage by CAP topic — last 30 days, top 10 of 21 topics, 2,872 coded articles
Data table
| Topic | Articles | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Government Operations | 674 | 23.5% |
| Law and Crime | 510 | 17.8% |
| Housing | 206 | 7.2% |
| Environment | 194 | 6.8% |
| Health | 186 | 6.5% |
| Education | 173 | 6.0% |
| Transportation | 152 | 5.3% |
| Energy | 83 | 2.9% |
| Public Lands | 83 | 2.9% |
| Defense | 77 | 2.7% |
Attention over time
Articles per day for the five biggest policy topics — 7-day average, through 2026-10-12
The Maine press, by volume
Articles from the five monitored Maine outlets — last 30 days
The candidates in the coverage
Most frequent words in Maine headlines naming each candidate — last 90 days, each word counted once per headline
Live pilot data from our Maine news collection (Portland Press Herald, Bangor Daily News, Lewiston Sun Journal, The Maine Wire, The Maine Monitor); topics use the CAP v4 media codebook — not yet the US Policy Agendas master codebook, one of the collaboration's open decisions. Syndicated non-Maine outlets are excluded. Race facts as of August 20, 2026. Candidate photos: Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons.
Who the race is about
Which social groups the Maine press names alongside each candidate, and the words that set the two apart — over the past year of coverage.
Troy Jackson
families 194workers 120parents 111unions 102women 101veterans 84
Words over-represented against Collins
governorclasspingreeforeignsharpniravhannahruleoctoberactuallyblastsend
Susan Collins
families 370women 263parents 201veterans 184seniors 160workers 156
Words over-represented against Jackson
federalshootinghonorimmigrationyorkbathironworkschristenskoreanmedalrecipient
Group counts come from the social-group dictionary. Numbers are articles naming that group alongside the candidate.
The data underneath
What feeds this page — the corpus, the pipeline, and its limits.
Our Maine news collection — a rolling archive of Maine news coverage: 20,220 articles and counting since 2026-05. The unit of observation is the article.
Two streams, listed in full below: the Maine press, and the campaigns and state parties speaking for themselves. They are collected the same way, but never mixed in a chart — press coverage is what is written about the race, a communiqué is what a side wants said about it.
Automated, around the clock: new items are fetched, deduplicated by canonical URL, and archived with headline, outlet, and timestamp. The collection has run since May 2026. A gap in the underlying data in early July 2026 is visible in the time series above.
Every article is classified into Comparative Agendas Project topic categories (the CAP v4 codebook, with one “no policy content” outcome) by three equal votes: two fine-tuned transformer classifiers and one language model that is consulted only where the classifiers’ averaged probabilities leave the leading topics close. 100.0% of the corpus carries a topic code. Accuracy on this collection has not been measured; the Data & methods page gives the benchmark results.
Race-specific views on this page select coverage by matching candidate names in the headline.
Analytics only — no article text is republished. Topic categories are CAP v4, not yet the US Policy Agendas master codebook (an open decision of the collaboration). Outlet-level views are restricted to the five Maine press outlets.
Every source
What is collected, from whom, and which of the two streams it belongs to.
- Portland Press Herald
- Bangor Daily News
- Lewiston Sun Journal
- The Maine Wire
- The Maine Monitor
- Collins campaign
- Maine Republican Party
- Maine Democratic Party
The Jackson campaign site publishes no feed, so the Democratic side arrives through the state party's stream.
Latest communiqués
Letter: Susan Collins puts people of Maine first - Susan Collins for Maine · 2026-10-13
When Maine soldiers needed someone to listen, Susan Collins did - Susan Collins for Maine · 2026-10-13
Tired of complaints about Susan Collins | Letter - Susan Collins for Maine · 2026-10-12
Here’s how Susan Collins secured my vote | Letter - Susan Collins for Maine · 2026-10-12
Maine cannot afford to lose Susan Collins’ bipartisan voice in Washington | Opinion - Susan Collins for Maine · 2026-10-12
Letter: Susan Collins has proven her worth to Mainers - Susan Collins for Maine · 2026-10-12
Collins Has “Rarely Thwarted” Trump and Other Fact Checks From the Week · 2026-10-11
WHAT MAINERS ARE WATCHING: Maine Attorney Files Ethics Complaint Against Susan Collins For Alleged Bribery Scheme · 2026-10-09
Rep. Katrina Smith says Hannah Pingree must answer for failures to Maine children and taxpayers · 2026-10-09
REMINDER: Susan Collins’ Votes to Extend Iran War Helped Spike Heating Oil Prices to Record Highs · 2026-10-09
MDP Statement on Susan Collins Denying Investments in Companies Profiting From Iran War · 2026-10-09
MDP Statement on Troy Jackson Winning Second Senate Debate · 2026-10-09
KEY MOMENT: Bobby Charles Says He Would Restrict Abortion Rights as Governor · 2026-10-09
Hannah Pingree Wins Second Gubernatorial Debate · 2026-10-09
Debate Receipts: Bobby Charles and Trump’s Tariffs · 2026-10-08
Debate Receipts: Bobby Charles on Trump · 2026-10-08
Debate Receipts: Bobby Charles’ Record on Health Care · 2026-10-08
Debate Receipts: Bobby Charles and Trump’s ICE · 2026-10-08
Collected every three hours from the newsroom feeds above, keyed on canonical URL so a re-run never duplicates. Titles link to the original releases; no text is republished.