With soaring energy prices and another Maine winter close on the horizon, heating assistance has become a prominent issue in the state’s ongoing U.S. Senate race as part of a larger conversation about energy costs and affordability.

“Nobody should have to choose between keeping warm and buying groceries or other necessities,” Republican Sen. Susan Collins said during a recent debate against Democratic challenger Troy Jackson. 

Jackson then recounted his own experience, saying he grew up wondering some nights if his family had enough heating oil to keep their furnace running — and linked that to a struggle many Mainers are facing today.

“And right now is worse than ever,” he said during the Oct. 13 debate.

The campaign discussion about heating aid also offers a stark comparison: More money is being spent on negative advertising in the Senate race than Maine’s entire federal allotment for heating assistance this winter.

There will be roughly $46 million in federal funds available for heating aid in Maine this winter spread across various forms of support, such as direct home fuel assistance, weatherization and efficiency investments, and emergency response funds.

This $46 million has already been eclipsed by the amount of negative ad spending in the race targeting either Collins or Jackson — with two weeks left before Election Day. 

A Maine Monitor analysis of campaign ads in the Senate race, available through ad-tracking firm AdImpact, found that more than $54 million had already been spent or committed toward negative advertising against Collins or Jackson as of Oct. 20. Almost all of it is from outside groups and not directly from the candidates’ campaigns.

The Monitor only needed to review the top 25 most expensive negative ads in the race to determine that this spending is greater than the entire pot of federal heating assistance available for Mainers this winter. 

“It certainly sounds like a stark illustration of how out of whack our campaign finance system is,” said Erin Chlopak, senior director of campaign finance at the Campaign Legal Center. 

This Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit has long advocated for reforms to the U.S. campaign finance system, including efforts to increase transparency and limit spending. 

“The amount of money being spent in an effort to influence elections — $50 million on negative ads — this isn’t about making sure that voters’ voices are heard in the political process,” Chlopak said. “This is about how valuable it is to people with unlimited resources to use those resources and help try to ensure that they are able to elect whoever they think is most likely to support policies that benefit their own bottom line.”

Approximately 70 different negative ads have been broadcast on TV during the general election in this race, according to AdImpact data. 

Of the 25 most expensive negative ads reviewed by The Monitor, all but one were funded by outside groups rather than the campaigns themselves. Most, but not all, of the outside groups are super PACs, which are not subject to the same rules as traditional campaign committees, and typically can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money. Several other of the ad funders are politically active nonprofits, often called dark money groups, that don’t have to disclose the same amount of information about their donors. 

The lone ad on this list from one of the candidate campaigns is an attack from Jackson against Collins and the frequency with which she votes with President Donald Trump. The Jackson campaign has spent at least $1.6 million on that ad so far. 

There are no negative ads directly from the Collins campaign among the top 25 most expensive in the race, but there are four from Pine Tree Results PAC, which has a joint fundraising agreement with the Collins campaign and several other groups supporting her reelection bid. These anti-Jackson ads include attacks on his approach to tax policy during his time serving in the Maine Legislature and his past support of previous Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner. 

In total, 13 of the most expensive negative ads came from Democratic-aligned groups attacking Collins, and 12 came from Republican-aligned groups attacking Jackson. Republican-backed groups have spent slightly more overall than the Democrat-backed groups have on these ads, $28.7 million versus $25.8 million. 

Bracing for winter

Maine heating oil prices soared to a record high in September, with the average price across the state topping $6 per gallon for the first time ever. Jackson and Collins have sparred over high energy costs repeatedly on the debate stage in recent weeks. 

Jackson frequently placed blame on President Donald Trump and his actions related to the War in Iran. He criticized Collins for not doing enough to oppose the war and the resulting spike in energy costs, while Collins pushed back to emphasize her repeated votes to end the conflict. She also argued that Jackson bears responsibility as former Maine Senate president for the state having some of the highest electricity rates in the country.

In an Oct. 13 debate, Collins emphasized her role in securing an early release of federal low-income heating assistance funds. Jackson responded in part by calling that funding “a short-term Band-Aid.” 

The next day, Jackson launched a new positive ad touting his work in 2022 as Maine Senate president to deliver similar emergency heating assistance at the state level. Jackson also spent more than $290,000 on a different ad encouraging Mainers to explore available heating resources, including state programs that are funded by the federal support Collins highlighted.

Despite the clear energy policy differences between Republicans and Democrats on the campaign trail, there is also widespread recognition across the political aisle that this is shaping up to be a challenging winter for many Mainers as they wrestle with high energy costs. 

Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, has urged Congress to “significantly increase” federal heating assistance “to ensure the safety and comfort of Maine people heading into the winter season.” Hannah Pingree, the Democratic nominee running to replace Mills, has called on Congress to double that funding for Maine, and Republican nominee for governor Bobby Charles has proposed using more than $200 million from the state’s Budget Stabilization Fund, also known as the rainy day fund, to provide additional heating assistance. 

According to MaineHousing, the organization that oversees most of the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program funding that flows into the state, there is approximately $42 million in federal funding headed to Maine this winter for heating assistance. That figure combines money administered by MaineHousing for the state government along with funding that goes directly to tribal governments in Maine. And it swells to an overall total of roughly $46 million when including roughly $4 million left over from last year. 

Of the money coming through MaineHousing, the agency’s director Dan Brennan said roughly $24 million is set aside for direct fuel assistance payments; around $6 million is for weatherization and central heating improvements; $3.6 million is set aside for emergencies; $1 million goes toward a program that helps educate low-income Mainers about energy self-sufficiency; $4 million is used for administrative costs; and $5.8 million funds labor costs at the local community action agencies that process the applications for this aid. 

That means the total funding for direct fuel assistance to help Mainers heat their home this winter is, at most, somewhere around $26 million between the MaineHousing and tribal funding. More than twice that is being spent on negative ads in the Senate race.

All of the funding MaineHousing currently has available for heating assistance this winter came from the federal government, Brennan said. And while this heating assistance was underutilized last year, leading to the leftover $4 million, Brennan estimated that current applications have increased by about 4 percent compared to this point a year ago. He said this is one of the hardest MaineHousing programs to predict, with the agency not always able to forecast what the actual need will be ahead of time. 

“But here’s what we know. We know winter’s coming. It’s going to get cold. We know that the pricing is outrageous, right? The cost of heating oil and propane is just off the charts,” Brennan said, while also mentioning the cost of kerosene. “So I think we’re bracing for a tough winter for people.”

‘It’s not a left-right issue’

To Chlopak, with the Campaign Legal Center, the comparison between heating aid and negative ad spending in the Maine Senate race is just one example of how a small group of people and organizations spend large amounts of money trying to determine who controls the U.S. government. 

Chlopak said she thinks it’s “a reflection of how fundamentally wrong, and, frankly, corrupt our system is at this point.” 

“We need to do something dramatic to change it,” she added.

Voters have already tried to change it in Maine by throwing overwhelming support behind a 2024 referendum seeking to limit the influence of super PACs. That state law, which would set a $5,000 limit for what individuals can donate to super PACs, passed at the ballot box with nearly 75 percent support across the state. But implementation of the law has been blocked after a federal judge found it unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds.

That law is still being reviewed in federal appeals court, and, while its constitutionality may yet be settled, its popularity with Maine voters was made crystal clear in recent years. And in the absence of restrictions on what super PACs can raise and spend, the groups continue to fuel massive amounts of spending. 

Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor and advocate for campaign finance reform, was a prominent figure supporting the 2024 referendum in Maine. He spoke to NPR this summer about the bipartisan support he encountered for the referendum on the ground in Maine when gathering signatures in 2023 to get the proposal on the ballot. 

“First guy to come up to me said, ‘I’m here gathering signatures to get Donald Trump on the ballot. What are you here for?’ So I showed him the initiative — the anti-super-PAC initiative,” Lessig recounted. “And he read it, and he said, ‘Hell yeah,’ and he signed it. And he said, ‘I’m going to get everybody who signs my petition to sign your initiative too.’ And that’s what he did for the couple hours he was there because it’s not a left-right issue.” 

General concern about corruption in the U.S. political system is similarly a bipartisan issue. A recent survey conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice asked 2,000 registered voters various questions about their perception of corruption in politics, including whether they see wealthy interests crowding out the voices of regular people as a form of corruption. Forty three percent of the respondents said they voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 and 41 percent said they voted for Trump. Eighty-nine percent said that it’s either “very corrupt” or “somewhat corrupt” for billionaires and big corporations to have an easier time getting their voices heard by the government than the general public.

Maine Public asked both Collins and Jackson about money in politics at their final debate on Oct. 15, and whether the candidates think Mainers should have access to information about who is trying to influence their votes amid a wave of outside spending when the funding sources aren’t always clear. Both candidates answered affirmatively. 

Collins emphasized her co-sponsorship of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. That landmark law put strict limits on campaign spending but was ultimately struck down by the 2010 Citizens United v. FEC ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which opened the door to unlimited and less transparent outside spending in elections. 

“But I still think that there are reforms that could be made,” Collins said. “And one of them is full disclosure of everyone who is contributing, whether they’re the billionaires contributing to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, or whether they are other people contributing to Republican groups. I don’t think there should be dark money groups.”

Collins opposed the DISCLOSE Act, a Democratic-led piece of legislation attempting to increase transparency around dark money in the wake of the Citizens United ruling. She explained her 2010 vote against advancing that bill in part by saying it failed to treat unions and corporations equally, and gave exemptions to certain grassroots organizations but not others. 

Jackson said he is “100 percent about overturning Citizens United” and expressed support for Maine’s clean election system that allows state legislative candidates to access public funds for their campaigns rather than soliciting private donations. 

“Billionaires have bought Congress, and everyday people can’t afford to buy them back,” Jackson said, adding that he is “more than willing to do anything to get campaign reform.” 

Past reporting from The Maine Monitor found that a large group of billionaires — nearly 100 individuals between the billionaires and their spouses combined — donated to a network of groups supporting Collins’ re-election effort. Jackson has criticized Collins for that support, and, as recently as Oct. 13 said he didn’t have any billionaire backing of his own. 

Because of his late entry into the race after replacing Platner, Jackson didn’t have to file his campaign funding sources with the Federal Election Commission until Oct. 15. Once that information was finally available, as reported by The Bangor Daily News, it revealed seven billionaires have donated to Jackson’s campaign. Collins pressed Jackson on this funding issue during the final debate, and he acknowledged that his campaign does in fact receive some support from billionaires but said he doesn’t owe them anything and wants to tax them if elected to the U.S. Senate.

More than $200 million was spent in the 2020 U.S. Senate race in Maine between Collins and Democrat Sara Gideon, smashing state records at the time. But this year’s race is already well past that mark with more than $260 million spent or reserved on advertising according to AdImpact. Republicans have a roughly $40 million advantage over Democrats in the race overall. 

“We say the numbers are eye-popping and then the next cycle they’re even more eye-popping,” Chlopak said. “So I can’t say I’m surprised. But it’s hard to be surprised by anything at this point in terms of the amounts being spent, because they’re just so astronomical.”

This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor, a nonprofit civic news organization. To get regular coverage from The Monitor, sign up for a free Monitor newsletter here.