<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A super PAC affiliated with Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) announced it will receive a full refund after a vendor mistakenly placed ads attacking her Democratic opponent, Troy Jackson, in the wrong state.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Defending Main Street PAC allocated approximately $25,000 for digital advertising that was inadvertently spent in Portland, Oregon, instead of Collins’s home state of Maine, which also has a city named Portland.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The ad campaign was executed through a media vendor and has since been retracted, according to a spokesperson for Defending Main Street. Google Ads confirmed that the advertisements ran for four days, from October 8 to October 11, and targeted zip codes in Oregon and Washington state.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“During a recent independent expenditure, our media vendor mistakenly placed approximately $25,000 in digital advertising in the Portland, Oregon media market instead of Portland, Maine,” said the spokesperson. “The error was identified, the ads were immediately stopped and corrected, and the vendor is refunding Defending Main Street the full amount of the misplaced spend. No donor funds will be lost as a result of the vendor’s error.”</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The misplaced advertisement represents a small fraction of the over $250 million that both parties have invested in Maine, which is considered a key Senate battleground for the 2026 election cycle.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">As of last week, Republicans have invested nearly $150 million in the state, according to AdImpact, while Democrats have contributed almost $110 million.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The digital ad in question highlighted the cost of living in Maine and associated Jackson, the Democratic nominee for Senate, with a series of tax increases enacted during his time as a state legislator.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“Maine can’t afford Troy Jackson and all his taxes,” the ad stated.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Jackson’s supporters have recently focused their advertising on high energy costs attributed to the war in Iran and Collins’s vote to confirm Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The candidates are preparing for their third of four debates before Maine voters on Tuesday night.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Collins, who has served in the Senate for three decades, is campaigning for her sixth term in November.</p>