"Susan Collins Our Senator" was plastered across the side of the bus that pulled into a three, soon to be four, generation family business in Naples last week while the owners, other local business leaders and residents stood by, holding campaign signs and cheering.
The incumbent Republican greeted roughly 20 people one by one, asking about their companies and remarking on mutual acquaintances.
"I love family businesses, given mine," Collins remarked to one. "They really are the heart and soul of Maine."
These are the types of stops, small meetings in community settings, at the center of the five-term senator's re-election campaign. While commending the work of the businesses, organizations and schools she visits, Collins always highlights the federal funding she's been able to secure — or in some cases claw back from President Donald Trump's administration — to bolster or make it possible.
"It's funny how people are like, 'Oh, she's been there for a while,'" said Kevin Rogers, who despite being a Democrat is a loyal supporter of the Republican incumbent. "That's when you start making things happen."
That's what Collins has tried to get across in her events and campaign ads leading up to the Nov. 3 election. Meanwhile, her Democratic challenger, Troy Jackson, has been making the case that Collins' successes as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee mask a record that ultimately hurts Mainers, since the vast majority of the time she has backed the Trump administration's policies, which have cost Maine millions.
Back in Washington, D.C. on Monday, Collins' power during Trump's second term will continue to be tested as she and her colleagues have just 16 days to avert a government shutdown and accomplish other unfinished business ahead of the midterms, where the party of the sitting president almost always loses seats.
But Collins has staying power, as her nearly 30-year record shows, and a sizable cash advantage against Jackson. The former Maine Senate president and logger from Allagash has been leaning into his ground game as a result, trying within a condensed timeline to build off the grassroots momentum sparked by former nominee Graham Platner.
Collins is not spending the weeks leading up to the election introducing herself to voters or telling them where she stands on issues. She's sticking to how she's long campaigned, highlighting what she's already done for specific communities, and distancing herself from Trump.
Against a backdrop of trucks strewn with Collins' campaign signs, Corey Mitchell, one of the owners of P&K Sand and Gravel in Naples, presented Collins with the endorsement of the National Federation of Independent Business, of which he is a member.
"Right now Washington needs people who can actually get things done and work across the aisle," Mitchell said. "Senator Collins doesn't make a lot of noise about how broken D.C. is. She's just there to fix the problem."
Mitchell and his mother Colleen Foster, another co-owner, praised Collins for her sponsorship of the Paycheck Protection Program, a 2020 loan program that gave money to small businesses to help them pay workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. They credit the program with preventing their company from having to lay off half of their workforce.
"It saved us," Foster told Maine Morning Star, adding that their loan was fully forgiven. "That was huge."
Foster also mentioned Collins' help when they felt they had unfair inspections of the working quarry on their property. Collins' constituent services is what many other attendees pointed to when asked why they support her re-election.
Craig Shaknis, co-chair of the Friends of Naples Recreation Complex fundraising committee, came to ask Collins for help getting federal funding to build a new facility. The complex had applied for a congressionally directed spending, otherwise known as earmarks, but did not receive it. Shaknis said he left with hope that her office would help.
Often arriving on the branded bus, the senator's other campaign stops — intentionally sparse compared with Jackson's crowded town halls — have similarly highlighted her appropriations power.
Same-day events underscore strategic differences in Maine's pivotal US Senate race
When she visited the Windsor Fair in early September, her campaign highlighted that she is currently working to secure more than $2 million in earmarks to construct an agricultural training facility on the fairgrounds.
When she got the endorsement of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine's political arm in Brewer last Tuesday, its leadership praised her for helping bring in federal funds to support fish hatcheries as well as for consulting alliance members while drafting federal gun legislation.
And when Collins greeted Bath Iron Works employees during their morning shift change last month, they praised her for the billions of dollars in defense funding she's secured — even though their national union has backed her opponent.
Because Collins is a sitting senator, she also makes non-campaign stops to towns and businesses using government resources and paid congressional staff. But the message at many of these visits is the same.
During the recess, she also toured a lobster pound in St. George, highlighting her work to try to secure funds to restore working waterfront property, and a child development center in Bangor, highlighting her efforts to increase Head Start funding.
During a tour of the Maine Energy Marketers Association Technical Education Center in Brunswick in early September, the senator repeatedly said how impressed she was by the extensive facility and training offered — and then in a speech spoke about the funding she's secured to ensure its viability.
"As you know, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and I have been the leaders in the Senate in making sure that the national organization that helps to support this effort is continued and funded," Collins said of the 2018 push to secure a 10-year reauthorization of the National Oilheat Research Alliance, "and we've got to do it again."
One place Collins did not appear during the recess was at Trump's midterm convention in Dallas last week.
"It's much more important for me to be traveling the state, meeting with constituents, hearing their concerns and talking about my record," she told reporters the day before the convention.
That's on par with how Collins has prioritized events in past election cycles, but more Republican congressional candidates have joined in that approach this year, moving away from nationalized MAGA-style rhetoric and localizing their races.
Also unlike past cycles, the administration has been allowing and encouraging that distance. Vice President JD Vance took it upon himself to cast Collins and Republican congressional candidate Paul LePage as independent voices during his latest visit to Maine.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bobby Charles, who Collins confirmed she will vote for, has tried to pitch himself in a similar way, despite pledging unequivocal support for most of Trump's policies. "The greatest irony is people look at me and they go, 'He's a Republican,'" Charles told reporters last week. "I'm really a very curmudgeonly independent-minded guy."
Democratic voters are leading Republicans in motivation ahead of the midterm elections, according to several polls that also show Trump is a stronger motivator for his opponents than within his own base.
During Collins' campaign stops, she has highlighted the ways she's pushed back against the president. Last week in Naples, she took credit for preventing Trump from imposing tariffs on Canadian road salt and cement.
A day prior, Jackson was asked by CSPAN about Collins' role in warding off the tariffs and responded, "Thank you for the road salt… What about everything else?"
Collins told reporters on Thursday, "Troy was mocking my success," adding that his comment was "dismissive of additional costs being imposed on our towns and cities."
As the campaigns grind on, similar back and forths are to be expected. While Jackson aims to convince voters she has not done enough to thwart the president's agenda, Collins is hoping to defy political headwinds to again win the title of "Our Senator" that her campaign branding bears.
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