Carol Andrews

U.S. Senate candidate Tom Allen: Campaign PhotoUPDATED

At this point last year, the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Susan Collins (R-Bangor) and challenger U.S. Rep. Tom Allen (D-Portland) was predicted to be a race to watch, with pundits deeming it as a key pick-up opportunity for the Democrats.

Three polls in recent weeks paint a different picture. Tuesday, Survey USA put Collins 16 points up. Last week, Rasmussen Reports had Collins 13 points up. A poll by Research 2000, commissioned by the Daily Kos blog, put Collins up by 19 points the week before.

The Rothenberg Political Report has placed the race in the “clear advantage for the incumbent party,” where it has been since last November, when it had moved from the “narrow advantage for the incumbent party” category.

Carol Andrews, spokeswoman for the Allen campaign, said these polls use unreliable methodology. The campaign does its own polling, which she said is accurate and shows the race to be closer.

Senate candidates Susan Collins (R-Bangor) and Tom Allen (D-Portland) both denounced an ad that hit Collins on her support of the Iraq War.

The ad is from the third party veterans’ organization VoteVets.org that opposes the Iraq War.

In the ad, Alex Cornell du Houx, an Iraq War veteran, said $2 billion of Maine’s tax dollars went to the war while Iraq got rich off oil profits.

Note: PolitickerME received further information and comments from several sources after Wednesday’s story was posted about an ad campaign opposing candidates who support the Employee Free Choice Act.

While Sen. Susan Collins agrees with the message in several ads that attack opponent and U.S. Rep. Tom Allen for his support of the Employee Free Choice Act, she doesn’t believe such ads have a place in Maine politics, a spokesman for her campaign said Wednesday.

Allen’s campaign has called on Collins to denounce the ads. Kevin Kelley, spokesman for Collins, said the Senator does denounce this ad campaign with a blanket denouncement of all ads produced independently of the campaigns.

“Senator Collins has always denounced third party ads,” Kelley said.

Carol Andrews, spokeswoman for Allen, released a statement Wednesday criticizing Collins for not speaking up about the ads.

Congress was in a partisan divide this week over whether to go home for their August recess. In the House, Tom Allen, D-Portland, voted with the Democrats to adjourn. In the Senate, Susan Collins, R-Bangor, voted with the Republicans to stay.

Allen is challenging Collins for her Senate seat.

The measure to adjourn passed narrowly in both chambers, but according to the Politico, House Republicans are still on the floor talking.

The debate was over energy. Republicans wanted to stay to push their plan – one that Allen’s campaign said would be disastrous.

Tom Allen’s campaign hit Sen. Susan Collins today for not supporting a cloture motion that would have ended a filibuster on the U.S. Senate floor yesterday. The filibuster, initiated by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., blocked a package of 35 bills from moving forward.

Allen, a Democratic representative, is challenging Collins for her Senate seat.

The cloture vote failed 52-40. It needed 60 votes to pass.

The package included a wide range of bills, from providing research money to paralysis victims to a measure to crack down on child pornography to a measure commemorating the Star-Spangled Banner.

Read the court's opinion here 

Herb Hoffman has pledged to continue to fight, but for the moment he’s off the ballot.

The state’s Supreme Court sided with the Maine Democratic Party, who challenged the independent seeking a U.S. Senate seat on the grounds that three signature sheets on his nominating petition were invalid.

The party brought the complaint first to the Maine Secretary of State’s Office, and then the Maine Superior Court, both of which ruled against them.

In a ruling which was handed down at 4 p.m. Monday, the Supreme Court overturned the Superior Court’s ruling.

The opinion read: “We conclude that the plain language of the statute requires that each of the three petitions be stricken in their entirety, and, thus, we must vacate the judgment of the Superior Court affirming the Secretary's determination that the three petitions were valid.”

The Employee Freedom Action Committee has launched a campaign against U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate against Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins.

Thursday a full page ad appeared in several daily newspapers slamming Allen for his support of the Employee Free Choice Act. The act is designed to make it easier for worker groups to unionize and has drawn fire from certain labor groups such as EFAC.

The bill’s opponents refer to it as the “card-check” legislation.

A fundraiser with three best-selling authors has been postponed because of a recent controversy.

Stephen King, John Grisham and Tess Gerritsen were scheduled to attend a June 7 fundraiser for Senate candidate and U.S. Rep. Tom Allen.

King made headlines after making the following comment in front of high school students in Washington D.C.:

Sen. Susan Collins is criticizing Rep. Tom Allen for accepting more money from MoveOn.org then any other candidate in the country.

Allen is challenging Collins in the race for U.S. Senate this year.

The U.S. Senate campaigns of Republican Susan Collins and Democrat Tom Allen are announcing their fourth quarter fundraising numbers.

Collins raised $963,073 in the fourth quarter. She has raised $4.564 million to date and has $3.913 million on hand.  read more »