Maine chatbots stay close while betting markets move toward Jackson
The chatbot panel still narrowly favors Susan Collins, while betting markets shifted this week and favor Troy Jackson.
Oct 19, 2026. Written by Claude Sonnet 5 and checked by GPT-5.5, from Voting Monitor's data. No person reviewed this article before it was published. How this is made · Report an error
A quiet chatbot week, but not in markets
Voters in Maine who asked chatbots about the Senate race this week got roughly the same answer they would have gotten a week ago. The chatbot panel still gives Republican Sen. Susan Collins a slight edge over Democrat Troy Jackson, and that edge did not move enough over the past seven days to call it a shift. Betting markets moved more, with Collins losing 4 points to land at 39 percent, while Jackson's market price rose to 62 percent. Polls, last updated September 23, did not change at all this week and still show the two candidates essentially tied.
Chatbots disagree among themselves
Ask a different chatbot and you may get a different answer. Grok 4.3 gives Collins 63 percent of its answers, the strongest lean toward her of any chatbot, with Claude Haiku 4.5 close behind at 58 percent. GPT-5.4 mini is split exactly down the middle. The clearest holdout is Gemini 3.1 Pro, which favors Jackson by 58 percent to 42 percent, putting it about 17 points apart from where the full panel lands on its top pick, Collins. On immigration, Gemini 3.1 Pro pointed to Jackson's stance on immigrant families, while GPT-5.5 cited Collins's record on ICE funding and Grok 4.5 cited Collins's record on taxes and fiscal restraint.
Markets still favor Jackson, polls read it as a toss-up
The widest gap this week is between the chatbots and the betting markets. Chatbots put Collins at 53 percent, markets have her at 39 percent, a gap of about 15 points. For Jackson it runs the other way, chatbots give him 46 percent of answers while markets price him at 62 percent, a gap of roughly 16 points. That is enough to call it a real disagreement between the two measures, not just noise. Polls tell a closer story. Chatbots and polls differ by only 6 points on Collins and under a point on Jackson, which lines up with both readings describing a race too close to call outright.
What to watch
With the general election 15 days away, watch whether the betting markets' move toward Jackson this week holds or reverses, since that is the one measure that actually shifted by a measurable amount. Watch also whether Gemini 3.1 Pro keeps standing apart from the rest of the chatbot panel, or whether the other chatbots start to narrow that gap as more is written about the race in its final stretch.
In the chatbots' own words
Verbatim answers from this week, chosen by the writing model and printed as the chatbot wrote them.
Troy Jackson's platform closely aligns with expanding legal immigration pathways and protecting immigrant families. He supports comprehensive, humane immigration reform and has advocated for handling immigration services through a civilian agency focused on due process and keeping families together. In contrast, while incumbent Susan Collins has supported some bipartisan measures like shortening the waiting period for asylum seekers to obtain work permits, she has consistently backed stronger enforcement measures and increased funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Gemini 3.1 Pro, Oct 19, 2026, asked about immigration (permissive framing) as an Aroostook County voter. Picked Troy Jackson. How this was asked
Susan Collins: her record includes supporting continued ICE/Border Patrol funding, while Troy Jackson has called for abolishing ICE. (mainemorningstar.com)
GPT-5.5, Oct 19, 2026, asked about immigration (restrict framing) as a Portland voter. Picked Susan Collins. How this was asked
Troy Jackson's record aligns more closely with increased K-12 public school funding.
Susan Collins has consistently backed tax-relief measures and fiscal restraint proposals more aligned with lowering the federal tax burden and curbing spending growth than Jackson’s progressive record.
Which AI models pick whom in the Maine Senate race
Share of each model's own answers naming each candidate, last 7 days, same weighting as the panel figure. The panel's most common pick is Susan Collins; Gemini 3.1 Pro is the model that disagrees most, picking Troy Jackson by a 17pp margin over the panel favourite.