Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and her Democrat opponent for Senate in Maine, Troy Jackson, squared off for their first debate in Portland on Tuesday. 

Democrats would likely need to flip Maine in order to have any opportunity to flip the Senate. 

I don't think they are going to do it with Jackson. While the polls show that it is basically a tie, we've seen that prior polling for her Senate races in the past often put the Democrats up by several points — but then Collins beats them handily. So if he is just tied, you have to think he has a problem. 

Then, too, Jackson's not particularly inspiring; he has put his foot in his mouth more than once, and his lack of polish showed again during the debate. He even had to bring a big binder of notes to help him and was frequently referring to them. 

Meanwhile, Collins stressed her seniority and what she has done for the state and what she would continue to do.

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She also sought to localize the race and pitch her seniority — and her perch as chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee — as a boost to Maine. She touted $1.5 billion in federal funds that she has brought home to the state for 672 projects in the last five years, “from Madawaksa to Kittery, from Eastport to Rumford.”

As one reporter commenting on the debate noted:

Susan Collins started by talking about the projects she has brought back to Maine, from fire stations to better roads. When I was in Maine over the summer, even Democrats in the state told me they had respect for her ability to bring investments to the state. That reputation is part of why she’s shown such staying power in the Senate even as the political environment has changed.

During the debate, Jackson ducked the question when asked if he was a socialist.

Not a good look.  And a terrible answer, even beyond dodging the question. 

A wide majority of Americans believe we should have voter ID. But not extremist Troy Jackson, who is out of step with Americans. 

Jackson tried to attack her over her vote on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and her record. But Collins shot back at his record in the state legislature.

At one point, she noted how she negotiated to get salt removed from the tariff list, noting Maine’s dependence on imports from Canada to treat its roads in the winter.

“What about everything else? We can’t eat road salt,” Jackson fired back. [....]

“If you look at the policies that have driven up the cost of living in Maine, you have to look at Augusta. Maine has the fourth-highest electricity rates in the country. It has some of the highest housing costs in the entire country,” she said.

“It has extraordinarily high property taxes. Those are all due to Augusta’s failed policies under the failed leadership of Troy Jackson.”

This was a highlight moment for Collins when she just smoked Jackson on his actions — or lack of them — in the state legislature.

“In your more than 20 years in the legislature, more than one third of your bills were unanimously rejected in committee,” she said. “You couldn’t even find one Democrat on the committee to support a third of your bills.”

“If you can’t find one person in your own party to vote for your bills when you were the Senate president in Maine, how do you think you’re going to get things done in a closely divided Senate as the most junior senator?”

If he was frustrated in the Maine legislature, why would he ever want to be in the U.S. Senate? 

Collins even snuck in a jab at the end. 

That may also do him in in that area.