It’s cited often as one of the clearest signs of Sen. Susan Collins’ influence. Voters, political experts and defense industry watchers have noticed that Congress tends to go beyond the Pentagon’s own budget requests and increase orders for the kinds of ships that thousands of Mainers build at Bath Iron Works.

The shipyard on the Kennebec River is the state’s fourth-largest private employer. In the most recent fiscal year, the Pentagon asked for two DDG-51 destroyers and Congress approved three, at an additional cost of about $1 billion, which Collins said would benefit BIW.

As far back as a decade ago, Collins told Maine Public that she got funding for an additional ship and, “If I hadn’t been able to get the funding in the bill, in the appropriations process, then we would have virtually no chance of getting the funding.”

With Maine voters set to decide whether to keep her in the Senate, it raises questions about what will happen if she isn’t in Washington to advocate for the defense industry, and what her opponent in the 2026 election, Graham Platner, would do in her place.

BIW employs about 6,800 people, part of the 20,000 the defense industry employs overall in Maine, according to companies and their university and government partners. That includes 2,300 people at Pratt & Whitney in North Berwick, which produces and maintains jet engines and components; and thousands more at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, a government-operated site that works on nuclear submarines; as well as many smaller companies.

In the annual defense funding bill, senators aren’t allowed to directly ask for earmark projects that will help their states, Collins said. But she has been able to use her earmarks to direct money to help BIW. For example, $1 million in 2024 paid for a study on workforce transportation needs in Bath. In 2027, a Collins request would bring in $4 million to develop affordable workforce housing in the city.

She also regularly takes credit for provisions in appropriations laws, like $300 million in 2026 to enhance wages at BIW and the other, out-of-state shipyard that builds DDG-51 destroyers.

Collins’ office said she also helped Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and got hundreds of millions of dollars in fighter jet parts and upgrades benefitting Pratt & Whitney. To top it off, the appropriations bill she oversaw also prohibited any kind of engine in the F-35 other than the kind manufactured in North Berwick.

Campaign finance records tracked by Open Secrets show Pratt & Whitney’s parent company, RTX (formerly Raytheon), contributed $81,500 to Collins’ campaign and leadership PAC since 2020. General Dynamics, which owns BIW, contributed $74,000, and they also contributed to other Maine candidates. The donations represent a small fraction of the $15 million her campaign has raised this cycle.

Platner, a combat veteran, said in an interview last week that while he has “essentially become anti-war,” he believes in strong national defense. If he wins, he intends to support Maine’s employers but advocate for systemic changes to the Navy’s procurement process in order to “build the kinds of ships that we actually need much more of.”

He said that in the age of drones and a type of warfare that’s more spread out in smaller units, the U.S. needs more small surface combatants (whereas DDG-51s are large surface combatants), which could be built at BIW.

DDG-51s have been in use since 1991. They’re considered the “workhorse” of the U.S. fleet and they were part of the campaign in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz this spring.

“It’s a great hull, but it’s an old hull, and it’s too big generally for what we ask it to do,” Platner said.

The provisions from the 2026 appropriations law are all indicative of the kinds of efforts Collins has made over the years to support the defense industry.

When it comes to the ships themselves, Collins can’t direct money straight to BIW, but she can advocate for destroyers to be built. She and others in Maine’s delegation say BIW needs consistent orders to make sure it holds onto skilled workers and can meet the military’s future needs.

BIW did not make anyone available for an interview but wrote in an email that Collins’ role as Appropriations chair is “invaluable.”

In reality, said experts including Gabe Murphy of the independent watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense, it’s difficult to verify exactly how these increases have actually gotten done, because the decisions are often made behind closed doors in committees.

But he and others agree Collins’ position has leverage.

“She’s the ultimate gatekeeper,” said Julia Gledhill, a research analyst at the Washington-based Stimson Center who focuses on Pentagon spending, military contracting, and weapons acquisition.

Gledhill said that while Collins has prioritized employing people in Maine, it means she helps increase the defense budget by billions of dollars. The increases have sometimes not only been left out of the Pentagon’s budget request, they’re also not on the Department of Defense’s additional lists of its top “unfunded priorities” it submits to lawmakers. Meanwhile, Gledhill said, federal spending on healthcare and education create more jobs.

The rest of Maine’s delegation has traditionally advocated for the defense industry here, as well, and they’re in positions of influence on the Armed Services and House Appropriations committees.