Collins' odds jump 8.7 points in Kalshi's Maine Senate market

Republican Sen. Susan Collins' price has risen 8.7 percentage points in Kalshi's Maine Senate winner market, narrowing Democrat Troy Jackson's lead, as a new New York Times/Siena poll shows her ahead of Jackson in several key measures.

The market for the Maine Senate winner shows Jackson leading at 62%, followed by Collins at 36%.

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Kalshi's Maine Senate margin-of-victory market separately forecasts a Democratic margin of 1.8 percentage points.

A new New York Times/Portland Press Herald/Siena poll shows Collins leading Jackson 49% to 46%.

“This is the first poll to show Susan Collins ahead in Maine since Graham Platner dropped out of the race in July,” The Times wrote. “Since then, Troy Jackson, who replaced Mr. Platner as the Democratic nominee, has led by an average of three to four points in the available polling, including a three-point lead in a CNN/SSRS poll taken before Labor Day.”

A New York Times analysis of the same poll found Collins ahead of Jackson in several other categories. She held a roughly 30-point lead with white voters without college degrees, 62% to 32%, a bloc that makes up a large share of Maine's electorate. Collins also led on personal character, 51% to 38%, and on bringing federal resources back to the state, 59% to 35%. Jackson held a narrow edge on health care, 49% to 46%, and the two were nearly tied on artificial intelligence data centers, with Jackson at 41% and Collins at 39%.

The polling shift comes as Collins faces scrutiny following a ProPublica investigation into an FBI inquiry involving her relationship with a major political donor.

ProPublica reported that FBI agents received approval for a broader public-corruption investigation after examining allegations involving Collins and other members of Congress.

The report describes a 2019 meeting between Scott Reed, chairman of the pro-Collins 1820 PAC, and three executives from Hawaii defense contractor Navatek. She was up for re-election and her poll numbers were dragging.

“A year earlier, Collins had helped their company land a multi-million dollar Navy research contract in Maine,” ProPublica wrote. “Now, seated at a coffee shop not far from the U.S. Capitol, Reed asked them for a $500,000 donation.”

Federal law prohibits government contractors from making certain political contributions, and Martin Kao, Navatek's CEO, was later prosecuted for illegal campaign contributions made through straw donors and a shell company.

“More consequentially, for the company to offer donations to Collins in exchange for an official action, or for Collins to accept, would constitute criminal bribery,” ProPublica wrote. “But the company did have such a proposal: Navatek was hungry for more government contracts in Maine. If they cut a big check, the CEO told Reed, Navatek wanted Collins to guarantee tens of millions of dollars in additional federal funding.”

After pleading guilty to campaign-finance and fraud offenses in 2022, Kao cooperated with federal investigators and described what he alleged was a broader pay-to-play operation involving members of Congress.

ProPublica reported that the investigation stalled after Trump returned to office as agents and Justice Department attorneys working on public-corruption cases were fired, pushed out or resigned. The FBI disputed ProPublica's characterization of those personnel changes, saying agents were removed only if they had acted unethically, undermined the agency's mission or engaged in the weaponization of law enforcement.

Then President Trump won re-election and the teams that oversaw public corruption cases “were eviscerated.”

“One of the agents who had taken Kao’s confession was pushed out as retribution for her role in investigating Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election,” ProPublica wrote. “Dozens of agents and prosecutors quit amid the department’s destruction, including the career attorney assigned to Kao’s case.”

ProPublica also reported that Collins dismissed the FBI case, saying “the Biden Justice Department found there was no wrongdoing by anyone on my campaign staff, my office or me” and that the FBI “totally cleared my office, my campaign and me five years ago of these seven-year-old allegations.”

The FBI told ProPublica that an earlier investigation found nothing implicating Collins or her campaign. ProPublica reported, however, that the newer inquiry centered on information Kao provided between 2022 and 2024 and remained active into early 2025.

The new Times/Press Herald/Siena poll was conducted almost entirely before the ProPublica report became public. Collins led Jackson 49% to 46% in that survey, while Jackson continues to lead Kalshi's winner market at 62%.

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