One of the Democratic Party’s best-known former senators is crossing party lines in one of the most important races of the 2026 midterms.

Joe Manchin says he will campaign for Republican Sen. Susan Collins as she fights to hold her Maine seat—and potentially help decide which party controls the U.S. Senate.

Manchin spent nearly his entire Senate career as a Democrat before registering as an independent in 2024.

Now he is offering more than a polite word of praise to a Republican.

He is ready to get involved.

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“I’m gonna do everything I can to help,” Manchin said during a CNBC appearance.

Those words put him squarely in Collins’ corner.

Manchin’s defense of Collins was unusually personal.

“You lose the Susan Collinses of the Senate, you’re losing the soul of the Senate,” he said.

He described Collins as a senator who is “always in there, always in the trenches,” and willing to work with people on the other side.

That kind of bipartisan language used to be routine in Washington.

Today, backing the other party’s candidate weeks before a pivotal election lands like a political grenade.

The Associated Press reported that Manchin will campaign for Collins as she faces a difficult reelection fight against Democratic nominee Troy Jackson.

AP accurately described Manchin as a longtime Democratic centrist who became an independent near the end of his Senate tenure in 2024.

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The report also identified Collins as the only Republican senator from New England and placed the race squarely inside the national battle for control of the chamber.

Manchin told CNBC that Collins is someone colleagues can talk to and someone who tries to do the right thing even when party pressure points the other way. He presented her as a working senator, not a television performer, and argued that losing lawmakers like her would further hollow out the chamber’s ability to solve problems.

AP’s account captured the stakes cleanly: a former Democratic vote that once helped determine President Joe Biden’s agenda is now volunteering his name, time, and reputation to keep a Republican-held seat from flipping blue.

The story also noted that Jackson is a former Maine Senate president, giving voters a contest between two experienced politicians rather than an incumbent facing an unknown challenger.

Manchin has moved beyond complimenting an old colleague after retirement.

He is choosing a side in a contest Democrats view as central to their path back to a Senate majority.

There is a narrow wording dispute over whether Manchin formally used the word “endorse.”

Mediaite reported that the former senator stopped short of applying that label to any candidate during the CNBC exchange.

The practical substance was unmistakable. Manchin committed himself to helping Collins in public, on national television, at the point when her campaign needs prominent validators who can reach beyond the Republican base.

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Manchin said he would stump for Collins, praised her character, and promised to do everything he could to help her win.

The CNBC hosts pressed the issue because campaign appearances carry much more weight than a friendly television compliment. A trip to Maine would put Manchin beside Collins, in front of cameras and voters, making the case that she deserves another six years over the nominee of his former party.

Manchin answered by calling Collins a great public servant and saying there was “not a better person,” language that left no doubt about which candidate he wants Maine voters to return to Washington.

Mediaite also noted a disclosure from host Joe Kernen that his daughter worked for the Collins campaign, a detail readers should know when evaluating the unusually enthusiastic tone of the segment.

Whether Washington calls that an endorsement, support, or campaign assistance, Maine voters will see the same thing: a former Democratic power player working to return a Republican to the Senate.

Semafor added another layer, reporting that Manchin and Collins were actively trying to arrange a campaign appearance together in Maine.

Collins told the outlet that Manchin had offered to appear and that she was thrilled by the prospect. She framed the offer as validation of her bipartisan record at the moment Democrats are arguing that her occasional breaks with Republican leadership are calculated rather than consequential.

She called him a prominent Democratic centrist who was prepared to go “all-out” for her campaign. That description is politically useful because Manchin spent years winning voters who were abandoning the national Democratic Party while still working with its leaders in Washington.

Manchin, for his part, said they were “absolutely” working to find an event that fit their schedules. The remaining question was logistical—what event and what date—not whether he was willing to lend Collins his name and presence.

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The report described this as the second straight election cycle in which Manchin lined up behind Collins, showing that their alliance has lasted beyond any one bill or Senate negotiation.

It also captured Collins’ own political argument: if a centrist who spent most of his career as a Democrat is willing to campaign for her, she can point to that support as evidence that her bipartisan reputation is more than a slogan.

Semafor quoted Manchin calling Collins both the “heart and soul” of the Senate, a phrase that makes his personal loyalty—and his view of what the chamber has lost—impossible to miss.

That makes this more than an offhand television comment.

It is a potential on-the-ground intervention in a race where every percentage point matters.

Manchin and Collins have years of history behind them.

They worked together on the 2021 infrastructure law, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and reforms to the Electoral Count Act.

Both built national reputations around the same political identity: centrists willing to frustrate their own parties when they believed a compromise was necessary.

Manchin also backed Collins during her 2020 reelection campaign.

So his latest move is consistent with a long working relationship.

What has changed is the political environment around them.

Collins is seeking a sixth term in a state that has repeatedly rejected Republican presidential candidates.

Her Democratic opponent, Troy Jackson, is a former president of the Maine Senate and a fifth-generation logger who has built his campaign around affordability, workers, health care, and economic inequality.

AP reported that Maine Democratic delegates selected Jackson as their replacement nominee after the party’s race was upended during the summer.

The outlet described him as a veteran state legislator from rural northern Maine with deep ties to organized labor and the progressive wing of the party.

Jackson’s rise quickly consolidated Democratic support and turned the general election into a sharp contrast between his working-class populism and Collins’ argument for experience and seniority.

AP reported that Jackson entered the convention with hundreds of pledged delegates after several rivals dropped out and party support rapidly coalesced around him. The speed of that consolidation prevented a prolonged internal fight and allowed Democrats to redirect money, staff, and attention toward defeating Collins.

He came out of the process as more than a placeholder: a seasoned politician with a personal biography built around logging, labor, and northern Maine.

The compressed nomination fight also gave Democrats little time to waste before turning their full attention toward Collins, a five-term incumbent who has repeatedly survived national efforts to defeat her.

That divide explains why Manchin’s presence could matter.

He gives Collins a messenger who spent decades inside the Democratic Party but openly rejects where its progressive wing wants to go.

Jackson, meanwhile, is leaning into endorsements from the left, including Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The result is a revealing split-screen.

Jackson is campaigning with Sanders and arguing that Collins has enabled Republican priorities.

Collins is preparing to campaign with Manchin and arguing that Maine needs an experienced senator who can still work across party lines.

The voters who dislike both ideological extremes may decide which message breaks through.

Fresh polling shows why neither side can afford complacency.

The Washington Post reported that a Post-Schar School survey placed Jackson at 50 percent and Collins at 46 percent among likely voters.

The poll’s margin of error was 3.6 percentage points, leaving the candidates effectively within striking distance of one another. Jackson’s numerical lead offers Democrats encouragement, but the sampling uncertainty and Collins’ history of outperforming surveys leave no room for either campaign to coast.

Collins has survived difficult races before, including a 2020 campaign in which public polling consistently suggested she was in greater danger than the final result showed. She won that contest outright, avoiding Maine’s ranked-choice runoff despite predictions of a much tighter finish.

Jackson’s advantage is real enough to command attention, but it is not large enough to make the outcome predictable. The race remains a genuine late-season fight, which is precisely why outside figures such as Manchin, Sanders, and national party organizations are investing their time and credibility there.

The survey was conducted from September 30 through October 5 among 800 likely voters, providing a late-campaign snapshot rather than an early name-recognition test.

The Post also found that voters were weighing Collins’ relationship with President Trump, while Jackson was still working to define himself for people who had only recently watched Democrats replace their original nominee.

Those crosscurrents help explain why national figures on both sides are descending on Maine and why Manchin’s centrist brand is valuable to Collins even after he has left the Senate.

That uncertainty has kept Maine near the center of every serious Senate map.

Manchin’s intervention also exposes something larger about the Democratic coalition.

For years, party leaders depended on him to win in West Virginia and cast decisive votes in a closely divided Senate.

Progressives frequently accused him of blocking their agenda.

Now that he is out of office and no longer registered with the party, he is free to make the break explicit.

His support goes well beyond saying nice things about a Republican friend.

He is putting his political credibility behind her survival.

That may not persuade committed Democrats who want Jackson in the Senate.

It could matter with independents, moderate Democrats, and voters who see Collins and Manchin as survivors from an era when cross-party dealmaking still carried political value.

And in a race this close, a relatively small group of split-ticket voters could be decisive.

There is still time for the campaign to change, and one poll never settles an election.

But Manchin has made his position clear.

When Maine chooses between Susan Collins and Troy Jackson, the former Democratic senator will not be watching from the neutral corner.

He will be trying to help the Republican win.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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