America's most vulnerable Republican opened her reelection campaign with an unboxing video
Plus: How the drones at the Olympics were designed to be so light
To kick off her campaign for a sixth term on Tuesday, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) unboxed a new pair of New Balance 990s sneakers to make a pun and announce some news.
“This is perfect for 2026 because I’m running,” Collins says after quietly chuckling to herself in the video posted Tuesday.
The only Republican running for reelection in a state former Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024, Collins is endangered. She’s the lone incumbent Senate Republican whose race is rated as a toss up by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and some in her party now worry about the possibility Republicans could lose control of the Senate in November. Collins is at risk of losing her job, and ICE raids in Maine haven’t helped her case.
To launch what’s shaping up to be one of the year’s most pivotal campaigns — and potentially one of the toughest reelection races of her Senate career — Collins suited up in New Balance and shot a short-form video.
The Collins campaign’s opening message is one of familiarity and dependability.
A 15-second unboxing clip is a surprisingly youthful campaign launch video format for a 73-year-old candidate (Though it’s worth noting that the Gen Z-style launch video still got a Boomer-looking, Can-Somebody-Open-My-PDFs treatment on X as the link to the video that the campaign used, from YouTube Shorts, only showed a close-crop of Collins’s smile as a preview.).
But the consumer brand that’s the star of the video sends a message about local ties and reinforces Collins’s public image. The privately-held, Massachusetts-based New Balance has multiple manufacturing facilities in Maine. And despite its growing roster of pro athletes, its celebrated status as a “dad shoe” designed for gym wear or mowing the lawn is exactly the sort of versatile, practical footwear a moderate would wear and want to associate herself with.
“Mainers, to a greater degree, I think, than most voters, are inclined to reward politicians who act very pragmatically, the sort of cliche of the politician who fixes the potholes,” Ronald Schmidt, head of the political science department at the University of Southern Maine, tells me. “She very much speaks to that demographic.”
Collins’s launch emphasized continuity, her record, and local support. She’s reusing a version of the same logo used by her campaign in 2014 and 2020, which spells out “Susan Collins” in a red sans-serif font with a star in the middle. The slogan “our senator,” which appears in logo lockups, is written in all lowercase letters and suggests a sense of familiarity and shared ownership.
The Collins campaign website has been updated with a new “Track Record” tab. At the top of the page are jobs and workforce development, healthcare, Alzheimer’s, Diabetes, and Social Security, giving some insight into the mean age of her supporters and the parts of her record she’ll likely promote in the race. Her New Balance unboxing video was published to coincide with an editorial on why she’s running in the Bangor Daily News, and she posted another video of Mainers saying why they support her.
Though Collins has managed to create a coalition of voters that defies strict party boundaries, her potential Democratic opponents are framing that moderation as mealy-mouthedness. Maine Gov. Janet Mills released an ad Wednesday that compiles clips of Collins saying she’s “concerned” over and over while Graham Platner tweeted an image of Collins in the Oval Office holding a red Trump campaign hat to welcome her to the race. Collins will face off against the winner of the Democratic primary in June.
Collins managed to outrun President Donald Trump in 2020 when he lost Maine and the presidency. Whether or not she can do it again could help determine control on the Senate.
How the drones at the Olympics were designed to be so light
Their batteries can only last about two runs before they have to be replaced.
The 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics are giving people at home a first-of-its-kind, first-person view of the Winter Games, all thanks to a fleet of custom-built drones.
The small, agile drones can be spotted — not to mention heard — buzzing across Olympic venues, and they’re giving what broadcasters call a “third dimension” to the viewing experience. Instead of capturing the action only from fixed or semifixed cameras on cables and cranes, operators of these drones give viewers an athlete’s perspective as they race down slopes and around tracks.
“This is the closest you can get to feeling a jump,” ski-jumper-turned-drone-operator Jonas Sandell said in a statement.
It’s a thrilling perspective, and it’s at the heart of the visual concept for the Games, which is about showing movement in sport.
“It’s about capturing the motion of the athlete — not just the result, but the sensation of speed, the tactics, the technique, and the environment in which they compete,” Mark Wallace, Olympic Broadcasting Services chief content officer, said in a statement.
The custom drones are designed for agility and speed, with inverted blades and propellers mounted on the bottom so they can make smoother flight curves and tighter turns, providing viewers with immersive aerial coverage. What the drones are not designed for? Endurance; their batteries only last an average of two athlete runs before having to be replaced, according to the Olympics media guide.
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