1996 United States Senate election in Maine

none March 2026 September 2023 1996 United States Senate election in Maine Maine presidential no 1990 United States Senate election in Maine 1990 2002 United States Senate election in Maine 2002 November 5, 1996 150x150px Susan Collins official photo.jpg Susan Collins Republican Party (United States) 298,422 49.18% JosephBrennan.jpg Joseph E. Brennan Democratic Party (United States) 266,226 43.88% 280px County results 280px Municipality results Collins: #FFB2B2 40–50% #E27F7F 50–60% #D75D5D 60–70% #D72F30 70–80% #C21B18 80–90% #a80000 >90%Brennan: #A5B0FF 40–50% #7996E2 50–60% #6674DE 60–70% #584CDE 70–80% Tie: #D2B1D9 40–50% U.S. Senator William Cohen Republican Party (United States) Susan Collins Republican Party (United States) The 1996 United States Senate election in Maine was held November 5, 1996. Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator William Cohen was tapped by the Clinton administration to serve as Secretary of Defense. To replace him, U.S. Representative Joseph E. Brennan won the Democratic primary while political consultant Susan Collins won the Republican primary. A competitive general election ensued, but Collins ultimately won out over Brennan, keeping the seat in the Republican column. With Collins' election to the Senate in 1996, Maine became the third state after California and Kansas to have two sitting female senators, and the first to have two elected female Republican senators. Brennan and Collins both ran in the 1994 gubernatorial election, and each won their respective party's nomination, but lost the general election to independent Angus King, who would be elected in Maine's other Senate seat in 2012 and become a Senator in 2013, serving alongside Collins. Following his departure from the Senate, Cohen was appointed United States Secretary of Defense by President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001. This was the last U.S. Senate election in Maine to see a Democrat carry any Maine county until 2020, when Collins lost Cumberland and Knox counties to Sara Gideon; Collins was re-elected in 16-county landslides in 2002, 2008, and 2014, while Maine's other seat saw similar 16-county landslides for Republican Olympia Snowe in 2000 and 2006 and for Independent Angus King in 2012. Democratic primary Candidates Joseph E. Brennan, former U.S. Representative from Maine's 1st congressional district and former Governor of Maine Jean Hay Bright, activist Sean Faircloth, State Senator Jerald Leonard Richard A. Spencer, former congressional candidate Results Democratic primary resultshttp://www.maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/1996p/pri96sds.htm Maine Primary Election Results - June 11, 1996 - U.S. Senator - Democrat - Summary by County 2013-01-05 2012-10-18 https://web.archive.org/web/20121018000557/http://www.maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/1996p/pri96sds.htm live Joseph E. Brennan Democratic Party (United States) 48,335 56.68% Sean Faircloth Democratic Party (United States) 21,204 24.87% Richard A. Spencer Democratic Party (United States) 10,236 12.00% Jean Hay Bright Democratic Party (United States) 4,524 5.31% Jerald Leonard Democratic Party (United States) 939 1.10% Write-ins Democratic Party (United States) 35 0.04% 85,273 100.00% Republican primary Shortly before the primary, allegations emerged in The Boston Globe, Portland Press Herald, and Bangor Daily News that state senator W. John Hathaway had sex with his twelve-year-old babysitter on multiple occasions in 1990.Maine Senate candidate fights sex charge - UPI Archives https://www.upi.com/Archives/1996/06/06/Maine-Senate-candidate-fights-sex-charge/5437834033600/ 2026-04-01 UPI en Hathaway vehemently denied the allegations, and blamed opponent Robert A.G. Monks for planting the story,Rimer Sara 1996-06-06 POLITICS: THE SENATE;Maine Candidate Again Faces 1990 Child-Sex Accusation https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/06/us/politics-the-senate-maine-candidate-again-faces-1990-child-sex-accusation.html 2026-04-01 The New York Times en-US 0362-4331 though the mother of the girl corroborated it. Monks admitted to sending a private investigator to Hathaway's former residence of Huntsville, Alabama to look into the story. Ultimately, both stories proved to benefit Susan Collins, who won over 55% of the primary vote.Weinsten Joshua L. Monks' cultivated reputation is gone with the election The Portland Press Herald Allegations that W. John Hathaway sexually abused an adolescent girl harmed one of his rivals for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate more than they hurt Hathaway. After spending $1.8 million of his own money, Robert A.G. Monks placed third in a three-person race for the nomination Tuesday. Hathaway, a one-term state senator tainted by accusations that he had sex with his children's babysitter several years ago, fared better, fin ishing second behind the winner, Susan Collins. The final, desperate week of the campaign was so bleak for Monks that he conceded defeat at 8:40 p.m. only 40 minutes after voters left the polls. On Monday, the day he ran a full-page advertisement in the Portland Press Herald, his campaign manager acknowledged Monks would likely lose. Monks' carefully cultivated reputation as a patrician candidate cut from the same cloth as Margaret Chase Smith and Edmund Muskie both of whom he ran against in the 1970s is gone. Now he is seen as having participated in the dirtiest campaign in modern Maine history. "It's a campaign and week unlike anything I've ever seen in Maine," said Sandy Maisel, a professor of political science at Colby College. "It was the lowest level that Maine politics have sunk to." Christian Potholm, a political sci-ence professor at Bowdoin College, said Monks "just fell down like a stone." The allegations about Hathaway broke last Wednesday in newspaper stories in the Portland Press Herald and The Boston Globe. Hathaway immediately took the offensive, accusing Monks of tipping the newspapers to the information that law enforcement officials in Alabama had investigated Hathaway for alleged sexual abuse of his chil dren's babysitter. Hathaway, who spent $600,000 of his own money on the campaign, effectively shifted the focus of the debate from his alleged sexual mis-conduct to what he described as Monks' role in making the allega tions public. During a press conference on Wednesday, an agitated, angry Monks railed about Hathaway's spin. But he acknowledged sending a pri-vate detective to Alabama, where the former state attorney general once investigated Hathaway's relationship with his children's babysitter. In his Tuesday night concession speech, Monks expressed wonder at the turn of events. Surrounded by the heaviest of Republican heavy hitters state Senate President Jeff Butland and House Republican Leader Walt Whitcomb, among others he said that "time and distance will offer me some vindication." He said that as recently as a week ago, he was in "a virtual dead heat" with Susan Collins, who won the nomination, slightly ahead. He fretted that Hathaway, who ran scathing television advertisements accusing Monks of "25 years of lies" was the real dirty trickster of the campaign. "People have lost trust in our polit- ical system today because they see their political leaders acting more and more like John Hathaway does," he said. But Monks himself had engaged in some negative campaigning. Among other things, he ran advertisements attacking Collins as a career bureaucrat. Many Mainers believed that by sending a private investigator to Alabama, Monks was playing dirty politics, Potholm said. "Whatever is true or not true about John Hathaway, people know that Bob Monks... hired a private investigator. It is the private investi-gator part that is souring Republican voters." Candidates Susan Collins, former Deputy Treasurer of Massachusetts and nominee for Governor in 1994 W. John Hathaway, State Senator Robert A. G. Monks, nominee for the United States Senate in 1976 Results Republican primary resultshttp://www.maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/1996p/pri96srs.htm Maine Primary Election Results - June 11, 1996 - U.S. Senator - Republican - Summary by County 2013-01-05 2012-11-15 https://web.archive.org/web/20121115021204/http://www.maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/1996p/pri96srs.htm live Susan Collins Republican Party (United States) 53,339 55.50% W. John Hathaway Republican Party (United States) 29,792 31.00% Robert A. G. Monks Republican Party (United States) 12,943 13.47% Write-ins Republican Party (United States) 33 0.03% 96,107 100.00% General election Results right 300px Shift by county 300px Trend by county Legend #d40000 Republican — >15% #ff0000 Republican — +12.5−15% #ff2a2a Republican — +10−12.5% #ff5555 Republican — +7.5−10% #ff8080 Republican — +5−7.5% #ffaaaa Republican — +2.5−5% #ffd5d5 Republican — +0−2.5% #d5f6ff Democratic — +0−2.5% #aaeeff Democratic — +2.5−5% #77e3ff Democratic — +5−7.5% #4bdbff Democratic — +7.5-10% #09ceff Democratic — +10−12.5% #00bdec Democratic — +12.5−15% #00a1c8 Democratic — >15% 300px County flips Legend Democratic #0671b0 Flip Republican #f48882 Hold United States Senate election in Maine, 1996http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/electionInfo/1996election.pdf Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 5, 1996 2013-01-05 2017-05-25 https://web.archive.org/web/20170525002438/http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/electionInfo/1996election.pdf live Republican Party (United States) Susan Collins 298,422 49.18% -12.16% Democratic Party (United States) Joseph E. Brennan 266,226 43.88% +5.24% Independent (United States) John Rensenbrink 23,441 3.86% N/A Constitution Party (United States) William P. Clarke 18,618 3.07% N/A 70 0.01% N/A 32,196 5.31% -17.39% 606,777 Republican Party (United States) Democratic Party (United States) Results by county CountySusan CollinsRepublicanJoseph BrennanDemocraticAll othersMarginTotal votes cast#%#%#%#%Androscoggin20,88144.0%22,88848.3%3,6547.7%-2,007-4.3%47,423Aroostook19,26955.4%13,46238.7%2,0725.9%5,80716.7%34,803Cumberland59,64746.0%60,97947.0%9,1637.0%-1,332-1.0%129,789Franklin7,00047.9%6,61245.3%1,0006.8%3882.6%14,612Hancock14,60255.4%9,50436.0%2,2708.6%5,09819.4%26,376Kennebec25,37545.3%26,84947.9%3,8436.8%-1,474-2.6%56,067Knox9,51651.0%7,41639.8%1,7249.3%2,10011.2%18,656Lincoln9,85953.9%6,98638.2%1,4467.9%2,87315.7%18,291Oxford12,48247.7%11,92945.6%1,7476.7%5532.1%26,158Penobscot38,86555.1%27,81439.4%3,8315.4%11,05115.7%70,510Piscataquis5,05756.3%3,42938.2%4945.5%1,62818.1%8,980Sagadahoc8,11948.5%6,98941.7%1,6489.8%1,1306.8%16,756Somerset10,74246.8%10,73046.7%1,5016.6%120.1%22,973Waldo9,23553.6%6,41537.2%1,5779.1%2,82016.4%17,227Washington8,23353.8%5,98139.1%1,0777.0%2,25214.7%15,291York39,82247.9%38,23146.0%5,0796.1%1,5911.9%83,132Totals298,42249.2%266,22643.9%42,1296.9%32,1965.3%606,777 Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic Androscoggin Cumberland Kennebec See also 1996 United States Senate elections References Category:1996 Maine elections Maine 1996