ME (NRSC Internal): Collins +8

[MT Treasurer]

Again, it’s sad that we’re not getting a reputable non-partisan poll here, but Democrats' overconfidence with regard to this particular race has always baffled me. It’s really not that hard to see how Collins forges a path to victory in this state (reading this forum you’d think ME was as Democratic as HI), and Gideon isn’t exactly an underrated candidate either. Yes, Collins is vulnerable, but she’s not even close to DOA, and it’s far from certain that this seat flips before MT/NC/GA-R/GA-S.

It’s tempting to compare this race to MT-SEN, where people just assume that the state's "partisan lean" and "polarization" will doom Bullock even though it’s pretty obvious that MT and ME have had a long history of split-ticket voting and Senate/House/state races which are uncorrelated with presidential voting. The country was very much "polarized" in 2008 and 2014 and blue state Republicans didn’t exactly fare well in those years either (in federal races), so it’s not like Collins' previous landslide victories were the norm back then.