The 2008 United States Senate election in Maine took place on November 4, 2008. Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator
Susan Collins
Susan Margaret Collins (born December 7, 1952) is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from Maine. A member of the Republican Party, she has held her seat since 1997 and is Maine's longest-serving member of Con ...
won re-election to a third term against Democrat
Tom Allen, the U.S. Congressman from
the 1st district.
Democratic primary
Candidates
*
Tom Allen, U.S. Representative
* Thomas Ledue, educator
Results
General election
Campaign
Allen tried to tie Collins to
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
, but these tactics failed as Collins maintained her image as a very popular, moderate, independent Republican. She obtained an endorsement from Independent and former Democratic U.S. Senator
Joe Lieberman
Joseph Isadore Lieberman (; born February 24, 1942) is an American politician, lobbyist, and attorney who served as a United States senator from Connecticut from 1989 to 2013. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was its nominee for ...
.
Lieberman Backs Susan Collins, Gives $5K To Her Re-election Campaign - CBS News
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When Collins was first elected in 1996 she pledged to serve only two terms (twelve years) in office, which would have been up in 2008. She instead decided to seek a third term, and defeated Allen with over 60% of the vote. She was the only Republican Senate candidate to win in 2008 in a state that was simultaneously won by Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
.
Predictions
Polling
Results
See also
* 2008 United States Senate elections
References
External links
Elections Division
from the ''Maine Secretary of State''
U.S. Congress candidates for Maine
at Project Vote Smart
Vote Smart, formerly called Project Vote Smart, is a non-profit, non-partisan research organization that collects and distributes information on candidates for public office in the United States. It covers candidates and elected officials in s ...
Maine, U.S. Senate
from CQ Politics
Congressional Quarterly, Inc., or CQ, is part of a privately owned publishing company called CQ Roll Call that produces a number of publications reporting primarily on the United States Congress. CQ was acquired by the Economist Group and combine ...
Maine U.S. Senate
from ''OurCampaigns.com''
Maine U.S. Senate race
from ''2008 Race Tracker''
Campaign contributions
from OpenSecrets
OpenSecrets is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that tracks data on campaign finance and lobbying. It was created from a merger of the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) and the National Institute on Money in Politics (NIMP) ...
Collins vs Allen
graph of multiple polls from Pollster.com
ME-Sen: Baseline poll
kos, ''DailyKos'', October 22, 2007
A Lopsided Senate Lineup
Charlie Cook, ''Cook Political'' January 20, 2007
{{United States Senate elections
2008
File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...
Maine
Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and ...
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and pow ...