Senator Susan Collins and Graham Platner are locked in a neck-and-neck Senate contest in Maine, according to a New York Times/Portland Press Herald/Siena poll, as voters weigh a desire for Democratic control of the Senate against Ms. Collins’s record and controversy around Mr. Platner’s past conduct.
Mr. Platner leads the race by two percentage points among likely voters, capturing the support of 49 percent, compared to 47 percent for Ms. Collins. It is a slight advantage, but one that is considered too small for polls to measure reliably, and which could easily grow or shrink as campaigning ramps up.
An oysterman who has never held elected office, Mr. Platner, 41, rode a populist message to the Democratic nomination despite reports about offensive online posts, a tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol and his treatment of women. But the poll found that he is failing to attract some voters who otherwise want to see Democrats take power in Washington.
Fifty-four percent of voters said they would like to see Democrats control the Senate next year, a notably higher percentage than the percent of respondents who said they supported Mr. Platner. In fact, Ms. Collins, the Republican, is winning 10 percent of voters who prefer Democratic control.
[Nate Cohn, our chief political analyst, looks at the quirky political contours of Maine’s Senate race.]
Mr. Platner has strong backing among Democrats and some of the party’s traditional constituencies, winning notable majorities of young, college-educated and Portland-area voters. A slight majority — 52 percent — of women say they support his bid.
While Ms. Collins, 73, is not broadly popular in the state — about as many voters view her positively as negatively — voters’ views of the senator remain largely unchanged since 2020, when she won re-election by 9 percentage points, outperforming President Trump in the state. Likely voters view her more favorably than Mr. Trump by nearly 10 percentage points, and they said they appreciated her ability to bring federal resources to Maine.
Still, there are signs that Ms. Collins, who is running for a sixth term, may face some fresh liabilities. A majority of Mainers — including 57 percent of independent voters — said they thought she would be too supportive of Mr. Trump in the Senate. And even some of her own supporters worry that she is “too old” to be an effective senator, though those concerns are mirrored by anxieties among Democrats that Mr. Platner is “too inexperienced.”
Both parties see Maine as a linchpin of their battle for control of Congress. With Republicans holding 53 seats in the Senate, Democrats will have to defend all the seats they hold and flip four more to win control in November. The map is difficult for Democrats: Of all six Senate battleground states, Maine is the only one that voted against President Trump in 2024.
The poll is the first high-quality survey of Maine voters conducted since Mr. Platner won the nomination. And it provided a snapshot of his standing after The New York Times published a report revealing that several women whom Mr. Platner had dated said that he had engaged in unsettling and, in one case, physically threatening behavior.
The race remains deeply unsettled. Twenty percent of Mr. Platner’s likely supporters said they were only “probably” going to vote for him. Sixteen percent of Ms. Collins’s supporters said the same.
Some voters described dissatisfaction with their options.
Joan Merriam, 79, a Democrat from Rockland, Maine., described the race as “a moral Catch-22.” Ms. Merriam, a retired teacher, said that she was unsettled by the reports about Mr. Platner’s conduct toward women, but that she also could not imagine voting for Ms. Collins.
“I’m holding my nose and voting for him,” she said of Mr. Platner. “She supports Trump way too much and doesn’t have a backbone.”
The steady drumbeat of controversies surrounding Mr. Platner’s campaign have raised concern among some Democrats that he could complicate their party’s path.
Majorities do not believe Mr. Platner has “good character” or the “right kind of moral values.” By contrast, 66 percent of likely voters say Ms. Collins has “good character,” and 61 percent describe her as having the “right kind of moral values.”
More likely voters view Mr. Platner as “too extreme,” with 47 percent saying the phrase fit him well, compared with 34 percent who said the same about Ms. Collins.
Mr. Platner has been dogged by issues from his past since the early weeks of his candidacy, including revelations of explicit text messages he sent to women while he was married.
More than 90 percent of likely voters said they had heard about the various controversies. About 30 percent of Mr. Platner’s supporters said the reports had raised questions about whether they could support him.
“Assuming nothing changes, I will be voting for him, though not enthusiastically,” said Sarah Carnahan, a social worker from Farmington, who described herself as aligned with democratic socialism.
But Ms. Carnahan, 43, said she had begun wondering: “What if there’s one huge bombshell we don’t know about yet? Is there something that would change my mind?”
Much of the contest may rest with female voters, who have made up a majority of the electorate in past Senate races in Maine.
Mr. Platner has sharply criticized Ms. Collins for supporting Brett M. Kavanaugh, part of the conservative Supreme Court majority that overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that had guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion for nearly half a century.
Mr. Platner’s support among female likely voters is seven percentage points lower than the share who said they would support the Democrat running for the House in their district. But he is still running ahead of the support the 2020 Democratic nominee for Senate, Sara Gideon, received from women in exit polls and a 2020 New York Times/Siena survey.
About 60 percent of likely voters who support Ms. Collins give a positive reason for their backing — either her politics or her personality — compared with just 36 percent of Mr. Platner’s voters who pointed to a positive attribute about their candidate.
Ms. Collins’s strongest positive, according to the poll, is that voters believe that she can deliver for the state, a theme she has stressed during the campaign. Likely voters think Ms. Collins would do better than Mr. Platner at bringing money and resources to Maine, 61 percent to 34 percent.
Mr. Platner has the edge, though, when it comes to being an independent voice — a key tenet of the state’s identity — and doing what’s best for ordinary Mainers.
“He cuts through the B.S. of political speech,” said Michael Bachand, 71, a retiree from Standish. “We have an opportunity for the first time in a long time to start a new movement for people.”
Much of Ms. Collins’s success will depend on whether she can outrun what is widely considered to be a challenging political environment for Republicans in Maine and across the country.
About three in 10 likely voters in Maine say they approve of how Mr. Trump has handled cost-of-living concerns, gas prices and the war in Iran. Just 27 percent of likely voters thought the recent agreement to end the war in Iran was a good deal.
Abdullah Haque, 45, of Bangor, said he disliked how Ms. Collins “snivels at Trump’s feet.” But he said he planned to vote for her because he was worried about his personal financial situation and believed she was better for the state’s economy.
“I care a lot about the local economy here,” said Mr. Haque, 45, an independent voter who works in health care administration. “I’m policy-driven. Outside of financial interests, I don’t like her.”
Ms. Collins has a history of defying expectations. In her 2020 Senate race, pre-election polls suggested that she would lose the race by around three to four percentage points. She won by nine.
