Can Susan Collins defy political gravity again?: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to From the Politics Desk, a daily newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, Sahil Kapur digs into the challenge facing Sen. Susan Collins now that her general election matchup is set. Plus, we have the latest on the on-again, off-again Iran war.

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— Adam Wollner

Can Susan Collins defy political gravity again, or is she 2026’s Jon Tester?

Analysis by Sahil Kapur

The case for Republican Sen. Susan Collins in this year’s pivotal Maine Senate race goes like this: She’s a proven winner with an independent brand that will allow to her rise above her party’s unpopular image.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because the same case was made for then-Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., two years ago.

Much like Collins in Maine, Tester repeatedly won in a state that his party consistently loses. But then his luck ran out: In 2024, amid a difficult political climate for his party, he once again overperformed national Democrats, but lost to Republican Tim Sheehy.

A former Tester campaign operative predicted Collins will be the Tester of the 2026 cycle. The operative, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to a new job that prohibits going on the record, said Sheehy won by tying Tester to the national party and narrowing his runway to win due to a shrinking share of ticket-splitters.

“The lesson there is you can’t outrun the national environment, or you can only outrun it so much,” the operative said. “Susan Collins is the same story — how much can she outrun the ticket?”

Much like Sheehy did to Tester in 2024, Democrats are promoting the message that Collins frequently votes with her party’s unpopular president.

The ads tying Tester to then-President Joe Biden were “incredibly potent” in 2024, the former Tester operative said. “Biden was about as popular as Jeffrey Epstein in Montana,” the person added. “And [Kamala] Harris wasn’t any better. You get to a certain point where it’s not possible to make up that margin.”

Newly minted Maine Democratic nominee Troy Jackson’s assignment is to capitalize on an environment that’s shaping up to be friendly to Democrats, given Trump’s declining approval ratings and low marks from voters on his handling of economic issues.

Trump lost Maine all three times he was the Republican presidential nominee. And Collins — like Tester — is emphasizing areas that highlight her independence from Trump, saying she’s “disappointed” in his recent round of tariffs.

“Just recently, President Trump imposed more tariffs on Canadian goods. That is harmful and is something that I’ve opposed from the very start of his doing that,” Collins told NBC News in Maine on Saturday after walking in a parade in Casco. “It makes no sense from an economic perspective, particularly for a state like Maine, where our economies and Canada’s are so intertwined. So I have opposed the president when I think he’s wrong, and I’ve supported him when I think that he’s right.”

Jackson, accepting the party’s nomination Saturday in Bangor, highlighted Collins’ votes for Trump’s tax law and his Supreme Court nominee Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who cast a decisive vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“Who has she served? She has served Donald Trump,” Jackson said. “She voted with him 96% of the time.”

Oil prices slide as U.S. and Iran pause strikes to give ‘space’ for diplomacy

By Chantal Da Silva and Steve Kopack

Oil prices tumbled today as the United States and Iran paused their escalating strikes to make “space” for diplomacy.

The two sides halted fire over the weekend, following 13 consecutive nights of attacks that shattered their deal to end the war and threatened new pain for the global economy.

International oil benchmark Brent closed down by 8.7%, at $88.36 per barrel, while U.S. crude fell by 7.5% to $82.61 per barrel. The moves were a sharp and rapid reversal from last week, when prices gained more than 9% and Brent rose as high as $102.

Prices fell to nearly their lowest levels of the day after President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that the U.S. was talking with Iran “right now.” He added that he was not in a rush to make a deal and had “plenty of time” for talks.

The renewed optimism follows mounting fears of a return to all-out war across the Middle East, as the battle for control of the crucial Strait of Hormuz expanded to the Red Sea, another key waterway for global trade.

Trump said Thursday that he was considering a “massive attack” to try to break Iran’s grip on the strait, but since then the U.S. and Iran have refrained from attacks for three days.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, told “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the decision to halt strikes came in response to ongoing talks between the two sides.

“What the president is doing right now, as we’ve seen all along, is giving some talks some space,” he said, adding that talks were “ongoing” but that there was “internal fighting” on the Iranian side.

Still, Tehran offered limited hope for any ramped-up peace efforts.

“Mediators may convey messages from the American side to us concerning regional developments, but at the present time we have no negotiations with the American side,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said today at a news conference.

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That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Annelise Hanson.

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