Joe Manchin to Campaign for Sen. Susan Collins in Maine Senate Race
A former Democratic senator crossing party lines to stump for a Republican incumbent signals how competitive the Maine race has become and how cross-partisan credibility is being deployed as a...
Former Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) will campaign alongside Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) ahead of the November 2026 midterm election, according to a report published October 19, 2026, by RealClearPolitics. Manchin, who left the Senate in January 2025 after declining to seek re-election in West Virginia, stated his goal is to help Maine voters understand how Collins approaches legislating.
Manchin served in the U.S. Senate from 2010 through January 2025, representing West Virginia as a Democrat and later as an independent. During that period, he developed a public record of working across party lines, including his role in negotiations over the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Public Law 117-58), which passed in November 2021 with bipartisan Senate support of 69 to 30, per the official Senate roll call vote.
Collins, first elected to the Senate in 1996, is seeking her sixth term in 2026. She has been a frequent participant in bipartisan legislative efforts. Among the votes most cited by both supporters and critics is her vote in favor of confirming Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in October 2018, recorded in the Congressional Record as a 50 to 48 Senate confirmation vote. She was also one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict former President Donald Trump in the February 2021 impeachment trial, per the Senate roll call record.
Maine uses a ranked-choice voting system for federal elections, established under Maine Revised Statutes and affirmed for federal races by state referendum in 2018. That system has historically made the state's federal contests more competitive for candidates who can draw support across traditional party lines, because voters rank candidates in order of preference rather than selecting a single name.
Manchin's decision to campaign for a Republican senator is notable in the context of the 2026 midterm environment. A separate analysis published the same day by RealClearPolitics reviewed Republican polling deficits heading into the 2026 cycle and drew comparisons to conditions in the 2018 midterms, when Democrats gained 41 House seats, per the final certified results from the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Collins has faced competitive general elections before. In 2020, she defeated Democratic challenger Sara Gideon 51 percent to 43 percent, with additional votes distributed to minor candidates under ranked-choice tabulation, according to certified results published by the Maine Secretary of State. That race drew more than $70 million in combined candidate and outside spending, making it the most expensive Senate race in Maine history at the time, per Federal Election Commission data.
As of the FEC's most recent filing deadlines, campaign finance totals for the 2026 Maine Senate race have not been fully reported through the third quarter. The FEC quarterly report covering July 1 through September 30, 2026, would contain the most current fundraising and expenditure data for all candidates in that contest. That document would reveal whether outside groups on either side have begun large-scale spending comparable to the 2020 cycle.
Manchin has not announced membership in either major political party since leaving the Senate and has not filed any FEC candidacy documents for a 2026 federal race, based on publicly available FEC records as of October 20, 2026. His exact role in the Collins campaign, whether as a surrogate, a featured speaker at events, or a formal endorser, was not specified in the RealClearPolitics report. A campaign event schedule or formal surrogate announcement from the Collins campaign would clarify his specific role.
The Collins campaign did not respond to a request for comment by publication time, and no formal campaign event announcement had been filed with Maine election authorities as of October 20, 2026, based on publicly available state records.
Several facts remain unknown at this time. The specific dates and locations of Manchin's planned campaign appearances have not been publicly confirmed. It is also unknown whether Manchin will participate in fundraising events for Collins or limit his involvement to public campaign trail appearances. The Collins campaign's internal polling, which would provide the most direct indication of why cross-partisan surrogates are being recruited at this stage of the race, is not a public document. FEC filings and Maine Secretary of State event records, when updated, would provide the clearest picture of how this cross-partisan effort is being organized and funded.