Free Republic

Bangor, Maine – A protester interrupted the final debate between Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic challenger Troy Jackson in Maine, triggering a heated exchange after Collins suggested the demonstrator was a Jackson supporter. The interruption came amid a debate that saw the candidates trade fire over numerous issues. The race between Jackson and Collins, who is seeking a sixth term representing the blue-leaning Northern New England state, is a top flip opportunity for Democrats as they try to win back the Senate majority from Republicans in the midterm elections. The latest public opinion polls indicate a race within the...

As president of the Maine Senate, Democrat Troy Jackson, now running for U.S. Senate as an opponent of "greedy corporations," cosponsored a bill allowing online lenders to skirt Maine's interest rate caps when offering small-dollar loans to borrowers with poor credit. A lobbying firm that employed Jackson's son supported the 2022 bill on behalf of a "predatory" lending company that was sued months earlier for violating consumer protection laws, a Washington Free Beacon review found. The bill, which Jackson and five other Maine Democrats introduced in February 2022, was framed as a measure to "Establish Consumer Protections Regarding Small Dollar...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan group of six senators on Sunday called for President Donald Trump’s administration to “immediately reverse course” on a plan to purchase diesel from Russia as part of an effort to lower high fuel prices. Trump shocked lawmakers when he announced on social media Friday that he struck a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call. He said Russia will immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel to the American and global market, followed by an additional 500,000 tons in November and 1 million tons “immediately thereafter.” Russia will deliver an additional...

More Republicans are speaking out against President Donald Trump’s decision to let Vladimir Putin’s Russia temporarily export diesel fuel on the global market, expanding the bipartisan blowback over the deal. Six GOP senators joined six of their Democratic colleagues in a letter Tuesday urging Trump to cancel the arrangement allowing Russia to supply 4.8 million metric tons, or nearly 36 million barrels, of diesel through mid-April. “This deal is a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our Allies; it should be rescinded,” the lawmakers wrote. Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Oklahoma’s Alan...

You might have recently seen a political advertisement about Maine’s Senate race. That’s because the advertisement mistakenly played in Portland, Oregon, instead of Portland, Maine. The advertisement, paid for by Republican PAC Defending Main Street, decries “Taxin’ Troy Jackson,” the Democratic candidate facing off against Susan Collins. Sarah Chamberlain, president of the Republican Main Street Partnership, said she was “very unhappy” about the mix-up. “I’m really upset,” she said. “I cannot believe that this happened.”

A new poll released by the group Interactive Polls shows the Republican candidate leading in nine of the key 2026 Senate races that will decide which political party will have the majority next year in the upper chamber. The group, a non-partisan aggregator of polls, news, prediction markets & election results, shows in its poll released Thursday: Incumbent Kansas GOP Sen. Roger Marshall leading by 5 pointsIncumbent Nebraska GOP Sen. Pete Ricketts leading by 5 pointsIncumbent Alaska GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan leading by 2 pointsIncumbent Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins leading by 2 pointsIncumbent Ohio GOP Sen. John Husted leading...

Planned Parenthood Votes will spend another $1 million on digital ads attacking Republican Senate candidates in Maine and Michigan, an outlay that boosts radical pro-abortion Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in the race to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters. The super PAC affiliated with Planned Parenthood said the new buy targets Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and pro-life former Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan. In Michigan, Rogers faces El-Sayed, a former Wayne County health official. In Maine, Collins is seeking a sixth term against former state Senate President Troy Jackson. The $1 million comes on top of $800,000 already spent on ads...

All conservatives wish that Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins leaned more to the right, but the fact is that Collins represents a purple state and has survived in Washington so long by being a moderate. In a time when communists are openly seizing control of the Democrat Party, the moderate Republican will obviously and always be the better choice. Another fact about Collins that makes her a political survivor is that she can be absolutely ruthless when she wants or needs to be. Last night's first Senate debate between Collins and her Democrat opponent Graham Plat ... err, we mean...

President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday that a Maine stop may be on his schedule, though he did not give a date. “I don’t know about Maine, I think we’re going to Maine too but we’re going to Michigan in a week and a half,” Trump said during a gaggle, according to the in-town pool report. Asked about mail-in voting, Trump said, “I’d rather have them vote in-person, but they can vote by mail if they want… a lot of people want to vote by mail, but a lot of very good people also want...

PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The University of Maine System (UMS) Board of Trustees voted Monday to accept a task force's recommendation to remove former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell's name from a building and a scholarship. On Jan. 30, the Department of Justice released millions of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and Mitchell's name appears more than 300 times in those files. In 2019, Mitchell was mentioned as an associate of Epstein's in testimony from one of the financier's victims. Mitchell, however, was never directly linked to child sex abuse. Advertisement A spokesperson for Mitchell said the former...

Democratic Maine Senate hopeful Troy Jackson complained that Jewish residents of his state have been reluctant to label Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip a genocide, saying that hesitation was “only because they’re Jewish.”Jackson, who has faced pressure from his left flank to more forcefully condemn the Jewish state, made the comment Tuesday to Portland’s NBC affiliate. “It’s unfortunate that there are people here in Maine that don’t like to use that term only because they’re Jewish and what that means to them, with the Holocaust,” said Jackson, according to Jewish Insider. “[Israel’s war in Gaza] fits that...

Throughout Graham Platner's Senate campaign, Democrats at the state and national levels repeatedly demonstrated that, at bare minimum, they were going to look away from the well-documented evidence of his antisemitism, his anti-Americanism, and his complete lack of respect for women and the boundaries they set. Worse than that, though, were the Democrats like Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17) who not only knew about the scandals but who excused them by proclaiming that they had gotten to know Platner and that he was a "changed man" who was no longer sexting women who weren't his wife on problematic social media apps...

An account bearing Troy Jackson’s name got kicked out of a Facebook group devoted to supporting him after members decided its replies were so insulting they couldn’t possibly have come from their candidate. Screenshots from “Mainers for Troy Jackson” show members arguing over whether they were dealing with the real Jackson, an impostor or someone else using his account. One member posted images identifying the profile as Jackson’s personal page, complete with a Facebook designation that made for an awkward endorsement: “Former member of Mainers for Troy Jackson.” According to a Maine Wire investigation, the account profile picture matches the...

A new poll indicates longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins is ahead of her Democratic challenger in a crucial Senate showdown in blue-leaning Maine. Collins, who is running for a sixth six-year term in the Senate, stands at 49% support among likely voters, with former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, the Democratic nominee, at 46%, with 5% undecided in the New York Times/Siena poll. Collins' three-point edge is within the survey's margin of error. Democrats are heavily targeting Collins as they work to flip the seat, which is key to their efforts to win back the Senate majority from the Republicans...

In the final weeks of 2019, a top fundraiser for Sen. Susan Collins walked into a perilous meeting at a Corner Bakery in Washington, D.C. For the first time in her two-decade Senate career, the Republican lawmaker from Maine was in danger of losing her seat. President Donald Trump’s dismal approval ratings were dragging her down in the polls, and she was falling behind her likely 2020 Democratic challenger in fundraising. Scott Reed, head of the Collins super PAC, was on a mission to close that gap. Reed was meeting that day with three executives from a Hawaiian defense contractor,...

Maine Senate hopeful Troy Jackson is seeking to downplay his ties to the far left, rejecting the socialist moniker despite previously receiving the backing of radical streamer Hasan Piker and the Maine chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. “I don’t really consider myself anything. I’m upset a lot at the Democratic Party. What I know is I fight for working-class people,” Jackson told CNN’s Manu Raju when asked if he sees himself as a socialist. Jackson quickly emerged as the grassroots’ favorite pick to replace scandal-scarred oyster farmer Graham Platner, who dropped his bid after facing a rape accusation...

Maine’s highest court has ruled that a father can prevent his daughter from attending a Calvary Chapel with her mother in a contested custody case after a lower court accepted an expert's claim that the congregation is akin to a "cult." The Maine Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) released a unanimous ruling Tuesday in Emily A. Bickford v. Matthew A. Bradeen, authored by Chief Justice Valeria Stanfill. At issue is an order of “shared parental rights and responsibilities” between Bickford and Bradeen, in which the two disagreed over who would control their child’s religious upbringing. Bradeen objected to Bickford bringing the...

A troubling court ruling out of Maine should have Christians paying attention. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has upheld an order giving a father final authority to prevent his daughter from attending an evangelical church after arguments that the religious environment was psychologically harmful to the girl. At the center of the controversy is Calvary Chapel Greater Portland in Westbrook, Maine, where the girl's mother, Emily Bickford, had been taking her to services. Her father, Matthew Bradeen, objected. In 2024, a Portland District Court gave him authority to determine whether his daughter could continue attending the church, and Maine's highest...

Former Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner is no longer set to speak at a Labor Day rally when he makes his first major public appearance since ending his campaign against Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. Platner, who won the nomination in June but dropped out in July after Politico reported that a former girlfriend said he sexually assaulted her, had been scheduled to speak Monday at the rally in Ellsworth, near his hometown of Sullivan. He has denied the allegations. Platner was expected to speak about labor history and the importance of unions in the US Event organizers were...

Paradise Residential Services CEO Jocelyne Ininahazwe and her family enjoyed luxury Mercedes brands while the disabled Mainers who relied on the Medicaid agency for 24/7 care were living in squalor, subject to abuse and neglect by non-English speaking staff, including some who were untrained and never subjected to background checks. That’s the chief takeaway from documents released Friday by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), including a termination letter to Paradise that cited “violations [that] place the health and safety of MaineCare Members in immediate jeopardy.” “[Paradise Residential Services] failed to ensure individuals are protected from abuse,...