Republican Sen. Collins promotes her independence and ‘true blue-blooded Maine’-ness by partnering with ex-Dem. Joe Manchin and breaking from Trump

Maine Republican Susan Collins has promoted her reputation as one of the most independent U.S. senators and she is using the waning days of the election season to sell that message to voters by campaigning with a former Democratic colleague who has endorsed her.

Collins is trying to fend off a challenge from Democrat Troy Jackson , a onetime state Senate president, and on Wednesday she made appearances with Joe Manchin , a West Virginian who became an independent late in his career before retiring.

After stopping for breakfast at Simones’ Hot Dog Stand in Lewiston, Collins spoke of how she and Manchin were “part of every piece of bipartisan legislation that passed and became law” during their time together in office.

Manchin said to lose Collins would be “to lose the soul of the Senate.” He praised her independent streak, her willingness to buck Republican President Donald Trump and her record of fighting for Maine’s interests.

“This is a true blue-blooded Maine person who knows exactly where she came from,” Manchin said.

They stopped later a New Balance shoe facility in Norway.

Jackson, 58, is scheduled to campaign Thursday in Portland with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive congresswoman from New York.

Collins, 73, is in what may be her toughest reelection fight as she seeks her sixth term.

It’s only the second time that she’s sought reelection in a midterm with a sitting Republican president, and the national trends are much less favorable to the GOP than they were the last time she did so, in 2002.

Trump’s approval has fallen well below where it was when he took office last year, and a recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that a strong majority of voters want change in Washington. ‘We need more people like Susan Collins’ Collins has been working to persuade voters that she is independent of Trump and willing to break with him.

In Manchin, she enlisted a politician who was one of the most moderate voices in the Senate.

Manchin said in 2023 that Trump would “ destroy democracy in America” if he was elected to a second term.

Among the few dozen Collins supporters at the Lewiston event was Mike Marcotte.

“I may not have always been a fan of her complete package of votes, but when I look at the vitriol that’s in the U.S.