The final days of the Maine Senate race are seeing the incumbent Republican Susan Collins face criticism for an attack on her Democrat rival, Troy Jackson, over the latter’s logger background. A new ad campaign from the Collins camp features Bill Green, the retired News Center Maine sportscaster. He says that Maine politics has gone into "the gutter," before endorsing Susan Collins as "one of the most decent and honest people I know." "I also know Troy Jackson, but we’re not talking about buying a cord of wood here," Green says.
"We're sending someone to the U.S. Senate, and Troy doesn't have the tools he needs to be effective." In response, Jackson called both Green and Collins "out of touch" and said the pair "talk down to people like me." "But this is about a cord of wood," Jackson said in a video posted to X. "It’s about an economy that Senator Collins has created that people can’t afford to heat their homes." And the ad has drawn significant criticism in Maine, with voters and political figures saying that Collins’s campaign had demeaned the state’s blue-collar workers.
"Susan Collins has spent the last 30 years trying to convince us that every Mainer has a cold and she's the only one with a tissue," said Jason Shedlock. He is president of the Maine Building and Construction Trades Council and a Democratic candidate for Maine House District 120. "We're not buying it," Shedlock told Newsweek.
"And with the price of that cord of wood or gallon of oil, we couldn't afford to anyway." "Bill Green’s latest ad for Susan Collins made my jaw drop," Jordan Wood, a former Democratic candidate for Congress in Maine, wrote on X. "A pathetic end to both of their careers. Mainers will reject these despicable attacks next Tuesday." Newsweek has contacted the Collins campaign outside of regular working hours for comment and is awaiting a response.
Jackson’s campaign has touted his blue-collar background throughout the race, often describing him as a "fifth-generation logger from Allagash." Following his recent personal financial disclosure, it said that he has engaged only periodically in logging since his election to the Maine House of Representatives in 2002. "He's a logger and union member who understands what it means to worry about making ends meet—and he would bring that experience to a Senate dominated by millionaires," a Jackson campaign spokesperson told Newsweek in early October. But, in the ad, approved by Collins and funded by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), Green said Jackson's background had left him ill-equipped for Congress and that the incumbent Republican "delivers for Maine." Green, a well-known figure in Maine, has already appeared in campaign ads for Collins in 2026 and in previous races.
In 2020, his involvement was considered by some a critical factor in Collins’s eventual reelection, despite her trailing in the polls before Election Day. "Senator Collins, I think you are a little out of touch," Jackson wrote on X following the latest spot. "This is about a cord of wood—and about Mainers struggling to afford to heat their homes this winter.
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