Brit Hume: Midterm convention was an exercise in shoring up Trump’s base
Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume joins Bret Baier to break down critical midterm matchups, including the Maine Senate race between Susan Collins and challenger Troy Jackson. Hume analyzes Donald Trump’s political messaging and Joe Manchin’s cross-party endorsement of Collins.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins said she would not be “intimidated” after one of her Maine constituent offices was vandalized Monday, prompting her Democratic challenger, Troy Jackson, to break his silence Monday night and condemn the “vandalism and intimidation” as “wrong.”
The senator’s constituent office in Biddeford, Maine was vandalized on Monday, with the words “Trump Whore” sprayed on the entry doors. The senator’s office confirmed the incident, while a photo of the defaced doors was on Facebook and X by Maine state Sen. Matt Harrington, the assistant Republican leader in the chamber. Meanwhile, the Biddeford police confirmed the presence of an investigation into the matter to Fox News Digital.
“Vandalism is unacceptable. Senator Collins and her staff will not be intimidated. Our Biddeford constituent service office remains open, and we will continue serving the people of Maine,” Collins Chief of Staff Katie Brown said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
https://x.com/MattAHarrington/status/2104621091113304087?s=20
Republican Sen. Susan Collins speaks with a Maine voter as the longtime GOP senator kicks off a statewide bus tour, on Friday, August 14, in Kittery, Maine. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)
Collins is running for re-election this year for a sixth six-year term representing blue-leaning Maine in the Senate, and is locked in a competitive contest with Democratic challenger Troy Jackson, the former Maine Senate president. The race is a must-flip for the Democrats as they try to recapture the Senate majority from the GOP in this autumn’s midterm elections.
“There’s no place for this in Maine. Vandalism and intimidation are wrong, full stop,” Jackson told Fox News Digital after publication. “Senator Collins and her staff should be able to do their jobs without anyone defacing their office, and I condemn whoever did this.”
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Former Maine state Rep. Austin Theriault, the 2024 Republican congressional nominee who narrowly lost to Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, and is now seeking to return to the state House, told Fox News Digital “there shouldn’t be any hesitation to condemn these sort of actions, regardless of where you are on the political spectrum.”
“I’m very confident that Sen. Collins herself would very quickly condemn this if the shoe was on the other foot,” Theriault said, while questioning whether Maine Democrats have an “identity problem” following Jackson’s initial silence.
Troy Jackson speaks as he became the Maine Democratic Party’s choice to be their U.S. Senate nominee to replace Graham Platner on the ballot in November on July 25, 2026, in Bangor, Maine. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Maine GOP Communications Director Kristina Parker argued in a statement to Fox News Digital that the vandalism “is just another example of the radical left’s aggression and inability to have civil discourse.”
The senator, a moderate Republican who has occasionally broken with President Donald Trump, has drawn bipartisan attention throughout the campaign.
She received praise this summer after casting her 10,000th consecutive Senate vote, but has also faced criticism from both parties. Collins has criticized Trump’s tariff policies toward Canada and voted against Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation, while Democrats have continued to target her over her defense of her 2018 vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who later joined the Supreme Court majority that overturned Roe v. Wade.
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