Augusta, ME – As the winter approaches and temperatures grow colder, the high cost of heating oil in Maine is becoming a political liability for Susan Collins, who voted to extend the Iran war five times. According to the Washington Post, “voters blame President Donald Trump and Republicans for rising prices and the war with Iran,” and Collins stood by Trump’s side in the critical early days of the war.

Read more about how heating oil costs are becoming a major issue in the Maine Senate race:

Washington Post: Home heating oil is a sleeper campaign issue across cold-weather battlegrounds

• As the weather grows cold in key battlegrounds nationwide, sky-high home heating oil prices could tilt a series of tight races. The average cost of home heating oil is well over $6 per gallon, up over 70 percent from this time last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. While about 4.8 million households use heating oil to heat their homes in the winter, most are in the Northeast, home to two key Senate races this year in Maine and New Hampshire.

• Republicans have also weighed in on the issue. But the politics are notably one-sided: First because voters blame President Donald Trump and Republicans for rising prices and the war with Iran, and second because the Trump administration has repeatedly pushed to end the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps low-income Americans pay for heating oil.

• “For the sixth time, the Budget proposes to end this program and instead support low-income individuals through lower energy prices and an America First economic platform,” reads the Trump administration’s proposed budget for 2027.

• “No one can or should live that way,” said [Troy] Jackson, Maine Democrats’ Senate nominee, taking on incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins in one of the cycle’s most hotly contested Senate races. “This is worse than ever. And I don’t know how people are gonna do it. … The federal government should not have gotten us in this position. And they certainly shouldn’t have been cutting a lot of heat funding so that people like Elon Musk have more f—ing money.”

• Gasoline and diesel prices have received considerable attention in this election. And rightly so.

• But in nearly every election I’ve covered, a sleeper corollary issue has directly affected a few key battlegrounds and could decide a few races because of its timeliness and potency. Home heating oil prices could be that issue for an electorate already angry about high prices.

• “We are a fairly cold weather state, and winter is coming,” said Marc Malon, a Democratic state representative in Maine who supports Jackson. “People are scared about how they are going to heat their homes this winter. It is a major issue.”

• Malon said he’s started to hear about it more and more when he knocks on doors for his own reelection campaign this year.

• “We are getting to the time of year where Mainers have to really have to start thinking hard not to turn their furnace on,” he said, calling it a household “battle to see if you can” make it into November without using oil.

WGME: Maine families feel pressure as heating oil costs continue to rise

• As temperatures drop, heating oil costs are climbing, and Maine families are feeling the pressure.

• There have already been some dire warnings about what struggling families could face once we hit the dead of winter, and that threat is real, but there is help out there.

• As of Monday, the average cost for heating oil statewide was $5.97 a gallon. Translate that to the average home tank of around 200 gallons, it would cost more than $1,200 to fill up.

• The high prices are clearly a concern for Mainers and have been a consistently discussed topic in the Senate race.

• “Susan Collins voted for the Iran war five times. I mean, she’s not interested in getting us out of Iran,” Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Troy Jackson said.

• As the war in Iran continues, disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz are putting pressure on global oil prices and driving up costs for Mainers.
  

• …Jackson says ending the war is the first step toward lowering costs.

• “I would bring our troops home,” Jackson said. “I get out of Iran and you know, I make sure that I get more money into the LIHEAP program.”

Vox: Cold weather and high prices could flip the Senate

• Mainers’ energy bills are expected to soar in the campaign’s final weeks, plausibly increasing voters’ appetite for change in the process.

• Maine is America’s second coldest state and unusually reliant on oil for home heat. As autumn advances, its residents will use more heating oil, thereby driving up both their personal bills and market prices. Thanks to the global energy crunch, a gallon of such fuel is already nearly twice as expensive as it was this time last year.

• Jackson has been hitting Collins on the issue relentlessly. That could put a chill in Collins’s reelection odds — and thus, the GOP’s hopes of retaining Senate control.