In Maine, a Toss-Up Senate Race Is About the Incumbent and Not Much Else

The five-term Republican senator was standing on a debate stage in Portland earlier this month, explaining how she deserved credit for ensuring concrete and road salt were exempted from President Trump’s Canadian import levies. The move saved one small town in northern Maine $10,000, Collins said. It helped a concrete business owner avoid a $150,000 hike. It was an updated version of the same argument Collins has been making for decades to win re-election in a state that hasn’t backed a Republican President since George H. W. Bush. When it was her opponent’s turn to respond, Troy Jackson shrugged. What about everything else going up in price, he asked her, before adding, “We can’t eat road salt.”For Jackson, the comeback was a hit. It sparked “let them eat road salt” memes of Collins depicted as Marie Antoinette and assuaged some fears among Democrats about how the last-minute replacement candidate would fare in the spotlight. The viral moment also brought into focus the race’s defining issue: Collins herself. Amid a handful of Senate races that will decide which party controls the upper chamber for the last two years of the Trump era, the race in Maine has emerged as the one most ...