At a Portland town hall, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told a transgender student “I’m a girl’s girl.” Where polls, absentee returns and ranked-choice rules stand 10 days out.
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., brought her national profile to the Maine Senate race 2026 on Thursday, Oct. 22, headlining a Portland town hall for Democrat Troy Jackson, who is challenging Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Answering a transgender college student, Ocasio-Cortez said, “I support the rights of trans women because I’m a girl’s girl.”
The race is tied in the latest Fox News poll. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3, 10 days away, and nearly 180,000 Mainers have already returned accepted absentee ballots, according to Maine Secretary of State data.
What Ocasio-Cortez said in Portland
The event at Portland’s State Theatre was billed as “Students vs. Billionaires” and hosted by More Perfect University, the campus program of the progressive media group More Perfect Union, WMTW reported. The group streamed the full event on its YouTube channel.
A student who said they were transgender and attend the University of Southern Maine asked what Ocasio-Cortez would say to trans people who feel the Democratic Party sees them as a losing issue. “They’re wrong. They’re wrong,” she answered (1:50:12).
She criticized “politicians who will jump on this side or that side of the line at a moment’s notice,” and added: “What is so important for everyone to understand is that the moment you compromise the rights of a trans person in America, you compromise the rights of every citizen in America” (1:50:36).
Minutes later she said: “I don’t support the rights of trans people just to protect my own rights, but I support the rights of trans women because I’m a girl’s girl” (1:54:47).
Jackson stressed his support for LGBTQ rights at the July convention where Democrats nominated him, an issue on which he held more conservative positions earlier in his career, Roll Call reported. At the town hall, he pledged to fight for Medicare for All, according to the Bangor Daily News.
Ocasio-Cortez also cast the race as a fight against the political establishment. “They’ve been afraid of a waitress in the House and a logger in the United States Senate,” she said (2:07:20), referring to her own former job and to Jackson’s.
Collins and Jackson on the record
Collins, a five-term senator, is seeking a sixth term. She won in 2020 by nearly 9 points and is the only Republican senator running for re-election this year from a state Trump lost in 2024, according to Fox News.
At the town hall, Ocasio-Cortez criticized Collins’ vote to advance the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and her vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Collins voted against final passage of the bill, the Bangor Daily News noted. A Collins campaign spokesperson said in a statement that Jackson is spending his time with far-left progressive officeholders, the paper reported. Collins campaigned in Lewiston on Oct. 21 with former Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va., who touted their bipartisan work on infrastructure and health care.
Jackson, a logger from Allagash, served six years as president of the Maine Senate. Democrats nominated him at a July 25 convention in Bangor after Graham Platner withdrew as nominee following an allegation of sexual assault, which Platner denies, Roll Call reported.
Maine Senate race 2026 polls
The three most recent public polls, all of likely voters, show a contest within the margin of error. For other close races, see the latest Senate toss-up polls.
- Fox News (Oct. 16-20): Collins 49%, Jackson 49%
- InsiderAdvantage (Oct. 13-14): Collins 47%, Jackson 49%
- Suffolk University (Oct. 8-11): Collins 47%, Jackson 49%
In the Fox News survey, about 1 in 5 likely voters said they had already voted, and Jackson leads that group by 40 points. A slim majority plans to vote on Election Day, and Collins leads them by 12. Independents favor Collins by 13 points. All Fox interviews were conducted after the candidates’ Oct. 15 debate. In the Suffolk poll, independents favored Collins 47% to 44%.
Poll methodology: Fox News Poll conducted by Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), Oct. 16-20, 2026, 1,514 Maine likely voters, margin of error ±2.5 points (1,689 registered voters, ±2). InsiderAdvantage, Oct. 13-14, 2026, 1,200 likely voters, ±2.83. Suffolk University Political Research Center, Oct. 8-11, 2026, 500 likely voters, ±4.4. LV = likely voters.
How ranked-choice voting works in this race
Maine uses ranked-choice voting in general elections for federal offices, according to the Secretary of State’s office. The official sample ballot for U.S. Senator lists Collins and Jackson plus a write-in line, with columns for a first, second and third choice.
When a candidate is eliminated in a ranked-choice count, each of that candidate’s ballots transfers to the voter’s next-ranked candidate still in the race. Rounds continue until only two candidates remain, and the winner is the candidate with more than 50% of the votes in that final round, under the state’s ranked-choice rules.
Absentee ballots returned so far
As of Oct. 23, 237,321 voters had requested absentee ballots and 179,532 had returned ballots that were accepted, according to a Politics Elections count of unique voters in the Maine Secretary of State’s absentee voter file. The file’s own summary lists 238,573 requests and 179,533 accepted ballots because some voters appear more than once. More than half of accepted ballots, 92,496, were cast in person at a clerk’s office.
By party enrollment, accepted ballots came from 90,265 Democrats, 46,932 unenrolled voters, 38,099 Republicans, 3,915 Greens and 321 Libertarians. Enrollment shows who returned a ballot, not how anyone voted.
Absentee ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day to count, according to the Secretary of State.
