Republican Sen. Susan Collins has opened a narrow lead over Democratic rival Troy Jackson, according to a 

The poll by the New York Times and Siena College, conducted from Sept. 15 to 22, shows Collins with 49% to Jackson's 46% among likely Maine voters in the Nov. 3 midterm election. Collins' advantage was within the roughly 5-point margin of error, and another 5% of the 619 respondents were undecided, pollsters said.

Jackson led Collins by 9 points among women, according to the Siena poll, and by 18 points among respondents aged 30 to 44 and by 34 points among Hispanics. Collins led Jackson among men, respondents aged 45 to 64, white and Black respondents, pollsters said.

But the Siena poll is the first to show Collins ahead in the pivotal Maine U.S. Senate race since disgraced Democratic nominee Graham Platner dropped out of the race in July amid sexual assault claims by his former girlfriends.

In previous polling, Jackson — a former Maine Senate President and Allagash logger who replaced Platner as the party's nominee at a hastily organized special convention — has led Collins by an average of 3 to 4 points.

The Maine Senate race is considered a must-win contest for the Democratic Party as it pushes to retake the U.S. Senate, where Republicans currently have a 53-45 majority.

Collins, a moderate, is the only Republican senator running for reelection this year in a Democratic-led state that Kamala Harris carried in the 2024 presidential election.

Both parties are channeling tens of millions of dollars into a crush of TV and digital advertising into Maine to sway undecided voters ahead of the election.

Election handicappers Cook Political Report and Inside Elections have both rated the Maine Senate race a "Toss Up" ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms.

Siena's Executive Director Dan Levy noted in a summary of the new poll that it was completed prior to new pay-to-play allegations involving Collins in a new Pro-Publica report.

The report documented how the FBI had looked into ties between Collins' campaign and former Navatek CEO Martin Kao regarding potential campaign cash exchanges for federal contracts.

Collins denied the allegations in a press briefing with reporters on Tuesday on Capitol Hill, calling the story a "political hit job" and denied any wrongdoing. She noted that previous Justice Department reviews had cleared her office.

"The Biden Justice Department found that there was no wrongdoing by any one of my campaign staff, my office, or me," Collins, a five-term senator, said. "This is absolutely outrageous. It's clearly a political hit job."