Collins calls 'pay-to-play' report a 'hit job' as Maine Democrats demand answers

The Maine Senate race was thrown into turmoil on Wednesday after a ProPublica report alleged that Senator Susan Collins’s office was party to a pay-to-play scheme involving a Hawaii-based defence contractor with donations to her 2020 campaign.

ProPublica reported that several executives of Navatek, a naval research contractor, met a top Collins fundraiser in 2019 as she faced a tough re-election fight and was lagging in fundraising. The meeting came about a year after Collins helped steer a multimillion-dollar naval research contract to the company, the outlet reported. Navatek’s chief executive, Martin Kao, agreed to “cut a check” in exchange for tens of millions of dollars in further government contracts — despite prohibitions on federal contractors making political contributions.

The outlet reported that Kao channelled $150,000 to the pro-Collins 1820 PAC through a shell company, the “Society of Young Women Scientist and Engineers, LLC”, and told other executives that Collins had committed to giving Navatek $32 million in government contracts. Kao and two other Navatek executives were indicted in 2022 over unlawful campaign contributions; Kao, already serving a sentence for Covid-relief fraud, pleaded guilty last year and received an additional 33 months.

Maine Democrats demanded Collins answer for the allegations. “This is an incredibly serious allegation that we need Susan Collins to respond to and address immediately,” said Devon Murphy-Anderson, executive director of the Maine Democratic Party. Her challenger, Democrat Troy Jackson, called the reported conduct “corruption of the highest order”.

Collins forcefully rejected the story. On the Wall Street Journal podcast All Things with Kim Strassel, she called the story “clearly a political hit job”, accusing ProPublica of “taking the words of a twice-convicted felon over my office campaign staff and me”. Her deputy chief of staff, Annie Clark, said the allegations were “categorically false” and that the campaign had co-operated fully with the FBI. The FBI said the claims “had already been investigated by the FBI years ago and ultimately found nothing implicating Senator Collins or Senator Collins’ campaign”.

The report landed six weeks before the election, in which Collins, a five-term incumbent, faces Jackson in a race that could help decide control of the Senate. Trump lost Maine in 2024 by seven points, and a recent CNN/SSRS poll showed Jackson at 48% and Collins at 45%, within the margin of error. Early voting begins on 5 October, with four debates between the candidates scheduled for next month.

Sources

• The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/23/susan-collins-corruption-allegation-report
• CNN, “Maine Democrats criticize Susan Collins over reported allegations of pay-to-play scheme”, 23 Sept 2026: https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/23/politics/susan-collins-propublica-maine-democrats-senate
• Associated Press (via national wire), “Maine Dems hammer Collins over report of pay-to-play probe. GOP senator calls it ‘completely false’”, 23 Sept 2026: https://theanswerdetroit.com/news/national/maine-dems-hammer-collins-over-report-of-pay-to-play-probe-gop-senator-calls-it/ff12b149bdf8c81c34755f8d1904cf82