What the latest CNN poll found about Maine’s races before Election Day
Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Troy Jackson and Republican Sen. Susan Collins (Photos by Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer and J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press)
Read all of our coverage of Maine's 2026 election or stay up to date with the latest developments through the Maine Political Report in your inbox or text messages from politics editor Kirby Wilson.
The latest poll of Maine’s top-of-the-ticket races found Democrat Troy Jackson and U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, remain essentially neck-and-neck in their U.S. Senate race while Democrat Hannah Pingree continues to comfortably lead the gubernatorial field.
In other words, not much is changing in the polls ahead of next Tuesday’s election, as Maine’s candidates and their allies make their final pushes to win over a small share of undecided voters.
The newest survey, conducted for CNN by public opinion research firm SSRS, came out Thursday morning and had Jackson, a former Maine Senate president from Allagash, receiving 49% support among likely voters to 45% for Collins, the five-term Republican incumbent from Caribou. The poll had 4% of respondents list neither candidate and 2% put down “other.”
Related
Maine voters are turning out in huge numbers. Will Democrats keep their edge?
Pingree, a former Maine House speaker from North Haven, led Republican Bobby Charles, a Leeds lawyer who worked under several former Republican presidents, by 53% to 39% in the survey of likely voters that notably did not ask respondents about independent Rick Bennett, a former Maine Republican Party chair and state senator from Oxford. Bennett has struggled to climb out of the single digits in polling of the race to succeed Gov. Janet Mills.
The survey follows a Marist Poll released Tuesday that was an outlier by being the only one to find Charles tied with Pingree in the gubernatorial race. Most have shown Pingree up double digits.
The CNN poll reached 783 registered Maine voters surveyed online or by telephone from Oct. 20 to this past Monday. It had a margin of error of +/- 4.5 percentage points, with 32% of respondents describing themselves as Democrats, 29% identifying as Republicans and 38% identifying as independents or members of another party.
Advertisement
The results were nearly identical to a CNN poll of the Maine races between late August and early September.
The electorate in rural Maine is notoriously difficult to survey, and Jackson is well aware that Collins was down in the polls ahead of the 2020 election that she ended up winning over Democrat Sara Gideon by roughly nine points.
Related
Control of the Maine Legislature hinges on these battleground races
While other polls have suggested Collins may once again outperform other Republicans in a midterm election year that looks favorable for Democrats amid President Donald Trump’s low approval ratings, the new CNN poll hinted at warning signs for the incumbent.
Trump’s approval rating among the likely Maine voters was 32%. Asked about what they think Collins would “do more to support” if elected, 54% of respondents said she would do more to support “the interests of Donald Trump and the Republican Party” versus 46% who said she would support “the interests of people in Maine.”
Still, the same percentage said Jackson would do more to support the interests of people in Maine, and 52% said he would do more to support “the interests of the Democratic Party.”
The economy and cost of living have been top of mind for American voters in national polls amid soaring gas prices and an unpopular war in Iran, and that held for Maine voters in the CNN poll. Some 44% of respondents listed the economy as their top issue followed by 27% putting the “state of U.S. democracy.”
Copy the Story Link
Tagged: bobby charles, election 2026, governor's race 2026, hannah pingree, Rick Bennett, senate 2026, Susan Collins, Troy Jackson
Billy covers politics for the Press Herald. He joined the newsroom in 2026 after also covering politics for the Bangor Daily News for about two and a half years. Before moving to Maine in 2023, the Wisconsin. More by Billy Kobin
