With just weeks left in the contentious midterm election campaign, candidates in a trio of highly-competitive Senate races debated Thursday night, clashing over the economy, tariffs, the Iran war and abortion rights, with control of the upper chamber at stake.
In Georgia, incumbent Democratic senator Jon Ossoff faced GOP representative Mike Collins. In Michigan, Democrat Abdul Al-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers debated over the state’s open Senate seat. And in Maine, longtime senator Susan Collins met Democratic challenger Troy Jackson. Democrats need to flip four Republican-held Senate seats to win the majority.
Here are the key takeaways from the battleground state debates.
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1. Affordability, affordability, affordability
Affordability was a major topic across all three debates on Thursday night, as voters consistently name the cost of goods, gas, housing and healthcare as their top concerns in this year’s midterms.
“Can you afford your gas? Can you afford your groceries under this guy who’s going to rubber stamp everything Donald Trump tells him to rubber stamp?” El-Sayed asked during the Michigan debate, the first of two in one of this cycle’s most fiercely contested races.
Both Rogers and El-Sayed said they support suspending a fuel tax to alleviate costs, while El-Sayed argued that the Iran war, which was driving up gas prices, needs to end. El-Sayed attacked Rogers for growing his personal wealth while in office as a US representative.
Rogers called El-Sayed “bought off” by billionaire George Soros, Hamas and Hezbollah. “We cannot afford Abdul, and we cannot risk his ideology,” Rogers said.
Republican US Senate candidate Mike Rogers arrives to speak to the press after his debate with Democratic rival candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. Photograph: Jim Vondruska/Reuters In Georgia, Ossoff repeatedly asked Collins to justify his support for Trump’s global tariff policies, which the senator said have “crushed Georgia families” and “strangled” economic growth.
“Let’s see if he has the courage to explain his votes,” Ossoff said, adding later: “Still have not heard an explanation for the tariffs.”
Collins, who is trying to cut into Ossoff’s lead, blamed inflation on Biden administration policies, singling out spending measures that his opponent had supported.
Later in Maine, where polls show a tight race, Jackson focused his remarks on pocketbook issues, including the sharp spike in heating oil costs and high energy prices.
Collins defended her record and argued that Maine had benefited from the $50bn rural health transformation fund that was appended to Trump’s signature tax cut and spending bill, the so-called Big Beautiful bill.
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2. It gets personal in Georgia
In the Georgia debate, a question about data centers erupted into a pointed, personal exchange between Ossoff and Collins.
“Mike Collins voted to take that money out of your pocket and out of your community and give it instead to data center developers,” Ossoff said.
He then accused Collins of being a “bigot” who has “hired half the Third Reich” – a reference to the congressman’s history of employing staffers who have expressed white nationalist, antisemitic, and extremist views online.
Georgia’s Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff answers questions during Thursday’s debate with Republican candidate Mike Collins. Photograph: Robin Rayne/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock “If John Lewis were marching today from Selma to Montgomery,” Ossoff said of the late civil rights icon and long-serving Georgia congressman, “Mike Collins would be grabbing a billy club. His office has been in cahoots with some of the most notorious white supremacists on the country.”
Collins was asked directly about his son-in-law’s social media posts promoting white nationalist and antisemitic views.
“You know, Rick, that’s my family,” Collins replied. “That’s the craziness that Jon Ossoff has been spewing out there.” Collins noted that a New York man had recently been charged after threatening to kill him, and added: “I’ve condemned racism, antisemitism, hate; I don’t care where the source is. And I tell him that too, it’s wrong. We have no place in this world for that.”
Collins, meanwhile, sought to cast Ossoff as “radical” and an “extremist” whose record in the Senate had left the state “less safe, more expensive and worse off”.
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3. Labatt and Red Wings in Michigan
Tariffs were also a topic of heated debate in Michigan, which shares hundreds of miles of border with Canada.
This week, Rogers publicly backtracked on previous support for Trump’s tariffs on the US’s northern neighbor, saying in a campaign ad that “Canada is not our enemy” and that the “tariff war” needed to end now.
During Thursday night’s debate, Rogers said he had spoken to the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, this week to advocate for a deal between the two countries. There are tariffs in place that are “too high and not helpful for us”, Rogers said.
Democratic nominee for US Senate Abdul El-Sayed. Photograph: Paul Sancya/AP El-Sayed said he supports targeted, logical tariffs that protect Michigan manufacturing, but nothing like the “ham-fisted, chaotic, self-serving” tariffs Trump put in place. He called out Rogers for “flip-flopping” on the issue, saying he was only reversing his stance because of “sagging poll numbers”.
“He’s doing an ad drinking a Labatt and talking about the Red Wings, pretending like he was not for this the entire time,” El-Sayed said. “Be serious, my guy.”
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4. Accusations fly in Maine
In Maine, discussions about gas prices and the war in Iran raised notable tension in the second debate between Jackson and Collins, who is seeking a sixth term in her seat.
“She’s the Chairman of Appropriations,” Jackson said. “Money has to come through them for these wars – she still can do something.”
Collins, who plans to continue leading the Appropriations committee if re-elected, said she had repeatedly supported war powers resolutions to halt Trump’s military action in Iran.
US Senator Susan Collins campaign in Maine earlier in the week. Photograph: Amanda Sabga/Reuters But Jackson pushed further, accusing the senator and her husband of profiting from the war.
She could use her leverage to stop this war, but instead they’re making money,” he said, prompting a furious response from Collins, who called the allegation “absolutely outrageous”.
“You owe me an apology,” she said.
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5. Reproductive rights under the spotlight in Maine
In Maine, both candidates were also pressed to address inconsistencies in their positions on reproductive rights, a crucial issue for voters in the state.
“Our records have changed,” Jackson said. “Mine has gotten better – hers has gotten worse.”
He pointed to Collins’ vote to confirm supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh, who helped overturn Roe v Wade in 2022. Collins, one of just two Republican senators who supports abortion rights, has said she does not regret her vote for Kavanaugh, even though she believed he had given her private assurances before his 2018 confirmation that he would not overturn the landmark ruling.
Collins sought to turn the issue back on her opponent, noting his past stances on abortion that have left many voters wary.
“From 2000 until he ran for the house seat in 2013 was very anti-choice,” she said, accusing Jackson of having held “extremist” views on abortion. “He was for a bill that would not allow abortion when the mother’s life was at risk.”
She also pointed to legislation she helped write that sought to “codify Roe v Wade nationwide,” but the bill never made it passed the Senate.
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6. Mittens off in Michigan
In Michigan, Rogers repeatedly attacked El-Sayed by attempting to tie him to Muslim terrorist groups, including Hamas, and suggested government surveillance would only bother someone if he or his family had something to hide.
Rogers brought up El-Sayed’s mom and sister, prompting El-Sayed to say at one point that Rogers should just come out and say what he’s been dancing around all night, after Rogers’ repeated references to terrorist groups.
“He wants this to be about anything but his own record,” El-Sayed said.
Rogers claimed El-Sayed refused to condemn a terrorist attack in Michigan earlier this year and the 7 October Hamas terrorist attacks in Gaza, although El-Sayed said he had condemned both.
But, El-Sayed added: “I’m not somebody who tries to make political theater out of other people’s pain.”
He also retorted to Rogers: “Did you sell your yachts?” Rogers responded: “I never owned a yacht in Florida, brother.”
After a 30-second commercial break, moderator Rick Albin said that in his 30 years of hosting debates, he’d never seen the sparring continue during the break, but tonight, it had.