A man will face charges after Ring camera footage caught him stealing a package from a Woolwich woman’s doorstep while wearing a T-shirt from a group backing U.S. Sen. Susan Collins’ reelection campaign, police said.
Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry said in an interview that his office has identified the man but has not yet arrested him, and the investigation remains active. The office has been inundated with tips from others who spotted or recorded the man over the past several days, he said.
“We’re making good progress,” Merry said.
The footage from Wednesday, posted originally by the homeowner and then shared widely on Facebook and X, shows the man knocking on a door, checking his phone, glancing over his shoulder, then grabbing the package off the steps and running to a car.
He was wearing a red T-shirt from Stronger Maine, a door-knocking operation linked to the Virginia-based conservative nonprofit Stronger America that has been canvassing for Collins ahead of her 2026 reelection race against Democratic candidate Troy Jackson.
The Collins campaign said the man had no ties to its own operation.
“This individual is not and has never been an employee or volunteer of the Collins for Senator campaign,” said Blake Kernen, a campaign spokesperson.
Stronger Maine called authorities as soon as it learned of the incident and fired the canvasser immediately, according to a source who has worked with the group. The PAC also reached out to the theft victim to offer to reimburse her for the package, the source said.
Several neighbors said in social media comments that the same man had been pounding on doors, running back to his car and speeding through the neighborhood. The original post drew a mix of outrage, mockery of the canvasser and debate over the race, along with tangents about electricity rates, immigration enforcement and the influence of billionaire donors.
Stronger Maine had raised $2.6 million as of late June, with $1.4 million of that coming from the dark-money group Stronger America, according to Federal Election Commission records. Stronger America has spent $11 million on ads in the race, according to AdImpact data.
That dark-money group has also injected at least $3 million into Pine Tree Results PAC, which is funded by prominent billionaires and has spent another $28 million on ads in one of the nation’s biggest Senate races.