Two of the most closely watched Senate races in the country remain locked in statistical dead heats less than two months before Election Day, according to new CNN/SSRS polls released Wednesday. In Maine, Democrat Troy Jackson leads Republican Sen. Susan Collins 48% to 45% among likely voters — a gap inside the survey's margin of error. In Michigan's open-seat race, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed edges Republican Mike Rogers 47% to 44%, also a virtual tie.

The CNN polls surveyed 880 likely voters in Maine (margin of error ±3.7 points) and 843 in Michigan (±4.1 points) by phone and online between August 31 and September 6. Roughly 18% of Maine voters and about a quarter of Michigan voters said they could still change their minds or hadn't settled on a candidate.

Two Very Different Dynamics

In Maine, the race looks less like a referendum on Jackson — the late-entering nominee who stepped in after Graham Platner's campaign imploded — and more like a referendum on Collins herself. Collins' favorability sits underwater at 41% favorable to 51% unfavorable, and CNN found that 71% of Jackson's own supporters described their vote as opposition to Collins rather than genuine enthusiasm for Jackson, who remains a relative unknown statewide. Newsweek's rundown of the poll noted it is the fourth independent survey since Jackson entered the race to show the two candidates within a few points of each other, following earlier polls from Abacus Data and Fox News that also showed a tight contest.

Michigan tells a different story. With no incumbent on the ballot, voters there are weighing competing worries about the candidates' ideology: half of respondents said El-Sayed's positions are too liberal, while 42% said Rogers, a former Republican congressman, is too conservative. That split roughly cancels out, leaving the race to hinge on turnout and the roughly quarter of the electorate still undecided.

Both races share a common thread: deep economic anxiety among voters and unusually soft approval numbers for President Trump, who registers disapproval from roughly two-thirds of likely voters in both states, according to the CNN surveys.

The stakes go beyond either state. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 Senate majority, meaning Democrats need to flip four seats to retake control — and strategists in both parties have long viewed Maine, a state Collins has won five times despite its Democratic lean in presidential races, as one of the most plausible pickups on the map. Michigan, an open seat in a perennial battleground, is similarly viewed as a must-win for Democrats' broader math. Maine's Portland Press Herald reported that other recent surveys, including from Fox News and Abacus Data, have shown similarly tight or even wider Jackson leads, reinforcing the sense that Collins faces her toughest reelection fight in three decades.

Neither the Collins nor Jackson campaign, nor the El-Sayed or Rogers campaigns, issued detailed statements responding to Wednesday's numbers, though both parties' Senate campaign arms have already poured tens of millions of dollars into the two states. With early voting set to begin in October in both Maine and Michigan, both races are expected to remain top targets for outside spending through Election Day on November 3.