QUID · MAINE U.S. SENATE · OCT 3 - OCT 9, 2026
Seven days of conversation about Susan Collins and Troy Jackson, split between posts that can be placed in Maine and posts from the rest of the country. A debate on Wednesday and an Obama endorsement on Thursday carried the week, and the two audiences reached opposite conclusions about who had the better of it.
Published polling, shown to set context. A poll asks a sample of voters which candidate they intend to support. Everything else on this page measures something different: the balance of positive and negative labeled posts about each candidate in the captured conversation. A candidate can lead the vote and still take the worse of the argument online, and where the two diverge this page explains the conversation, not the electorate.
The closest race on this page by polling and the furthest apart by conversation. Jackson leads the average by about 2 points, inside the margin of error of every poll in it, while Collins reads 34 points better inside Maine. Both in-state figures rest on about 30 stored documents, so read the direction rather than the size.
Net sentiment runs on the left axis from −100 to +100. Gold bars carry total daily volume for both candidates combined; hover any bar for the narratives driving that day. Jackson leads Collins on five of seven days. The exception is Wednesday, debate day, which is also the largest day of the week by a factor of four.
Maine's in-state cells are the thinnest in this race by a wide margin: 30 stored documents behind Collins and 32 behind Jackson, against thousands nationally.
Maine
722 unique authors · 200 original posts
(9% of volume; the rest are reposts and replies).
Sentiment from 300 labeled posts, 12.8% of this slice;
stored sample behind the labels 30 documents.
Collins's strongest in-state material is her own response to the campaign finance allegations, carried by Portland broadcast and drawing the highest engagement of any Maine post in the week.
Sen. Collins further addressed the pay-to-play scheme allegations on Saturday, saying those who know her know she serves the people of Maine with integrity.
WGME CBS 13 News, PortlandOct 5Source
The in-state argument for Collins is not about this week at all. It is that the polling was wrong about her once before, and the people making it are largely Maine political operatives rather than voters.
The polls said Susan Collins would lose in 2020. She won by 9 in a state Joe Biden carried by 9, because she doesn't listen to national pollsters.
@garrettmasonOct 5Source
Collins's in-state negative cell holds nine stored documents in total, and the sharpest concerns her campaign's finances rather than her record. That is a very small base for a figure as strong as +40.0.
Susan Collins's campaign finance director and her husband's boss both conspired with a felon to receive money that he couldn't legally give.
@CollinsWatchOct 3Source
Maine
884 unique authors · 190 original posts
(8% of volume; the rest are reposts and replies).
Sentiment from 320 labeled posts, 12.7% of this slice;
stored sample behind the labels 32 documents.
Maine's own conversation about Jackson is dominated by questions about an FHA loan and where he actually lives. It is pressed by Maine political writers rather than by the Collins campaign, and it is the main reason his in-state figure falls below zero under the stricter test.
Troy Jackson totally fails to defend himself on charges he committed mortgage fraud when he got an FHA loan for an Augusta home.
@SteveRobOct 7Source
The counter-argument is that federal investigators found no fault, and the dispute is about whether that is an exoneration. Both sides of it sit inside a cell of 32 stored documents.
Here's the problem: Troy Jackson is lying. The FBI found no fault. The DOJ found no fault. The investigation was done under the Biden administration.
@MaineWireJonOct 4Source
Where Maine argues about policy rather than conduct, the subject is energy prices and specifically solar subsidies. It is the only in-state thread in either candidate's cells that is about what the state pays for something.
Maine's solar subsidies are costing every Maine household an extra $250 per year.
@laurel_libbyOct 9Source
The same week reads differently depending on where you stand. Net sentiment is plotted from Maine on the left to the rest of the country on the right; the solid line counts every post naming a candidate, the dashed line counts only posts that name that candidate and not the other.
All posts naming the candidate Posts naming that candidate only
Collins reads better in Maine than outside it, +40.0 against +23.1, and the gap widens to +71.4 once posts naming Jackson are removed. Maine is arguing about her record and her 2020 result; the rest of the country is arguing about a ProPublica report. The in-state figure rests on 30 stored documents, so treat the direction as the finding and not the size.
Jackson is the inverse: +45.2 nationally against +6.3 at home, and he falls below zero in Maine once Collins's name is removed. An Obama endorsement plays nationally; questions about an FHA loan and where he lives play locally. Of the two, he is the one whose home state is least persuaded.
Geography, not party. Both columns cover the same week and the same two candidates; what separates them is which arguments actually travel.
Maine argues about conduct and cost. Whether Jackson's FHA loan and residence are a problem, whether Collins's campaign finances are, and what solar subsidies add to a household bill. Both in-state cells are very small.
Nationally the race is two documents: a ProPublica investigation into Collins and an Obama endorsement of Jackson. Neither originated in Maine, and together they account for most of the national volume.
Nationally Jackson reads twice as well as Collins, and an endorsement rather than a debate is the reason.
Rest of United States
63,237 unique authors · 6,600 original posts
(5% of volume; the rest are reposts and replies).
Sentiment from 19,783 labeled posts, 14.7% of this slice;
stored sample behind the labels 3,257 documents.
A ProPublica report alleging improper contributions is the organizing national story against Collins, pushed by national committees and super PACs. It is framed as a pattern rather than an incident, and it is the most repeated claim in her national cells.
Susan Collins took thousands of dollars from a medical company before giving them a $4.5 million contract. This is now her third allegation.
@ProjectLincolnOct 9Source
Much of what the classifier reads as positive toward Collins is national commentary about her prospects. It names her, discusses her 2020 survival, and concludes she will not repeat it, which is approval of Jackson rather than of her.
Susan Collins didn't collapse in ME-1 in 2020. Polls right now show she is. Troy Jackson is gonna win.
@AesPolitics1Oct 9Source
Georgia, Michigan and Maine debated in the same week, and national coverage treated them as one story. Several items in Maine's national cells are wire pieces about all three, which inflates volume without adding anything about this race.
Israel emerges as flashpoint in key Senate races as Democrats face questions over the US alliance.
Kayla GaskinsOct 9Source
Rest of United States
43,135 unique authors · 4,666 original posts
(5% of volume; the rest are reposts and replies).
Sentiment from 9,946 labeled posts, 11.3% of this slice;
stored sample behind the labels 1,539 documents.
Obama endorsed Jackson on Thursday and the post travelled further than anything else in this race. It is the reason his national figure sits at +45.2, roughly double Collins's, and the reason his best day is the day after the debate rather than the debate itself.
Troy Jackson is running to be your next senator, and I'm proud to be on board. In this economy we need a fighter like Troy.
President Obama, via @TheDemocratsOct 9Source
The national case against Jackson is run through party research accounts and is almost entirely about fossil fuels and taxes, using his own words in clipped form.
Maine Democrat Troy Jackson wants to kill American oil and gas jobs and completely eliminate fossil fuels.
@RNCResearchOct 9Source
The single most circulated moment of the debate is an affordability exchange on electric costs. It is carried by neutral tracking accounts rather than by either campaign, and it reaches both candidates' national cells.
Sen. Susan Collins slammed Troy Jackson for voting against a bill to cut electric costs by $275 a year. Jackson pushed back.
@VoteHubOct 9Source
This page is the product of two different kinds of work. One half is data that no public API makes available; the other half is judgment about what the data does and does not support.
None of the following could be assembled from public endpoints inside a week.
The data does not interpret itself, and it arrives with traps in it.
Neither half can establish cause. This page measures what was said, how much of it there was, and who said it. It is not a poll, it does not model turnout, and it does not predict the November result.
primary: sentiment targeting, so the sentiment is scored
toward that named figure rather than toward the post as a whole.