Susan Collins’ long balancing act in Trump-era politics came to an abrupt end in Maine on Tuesday. The five-term Republican senator and chair of the Appropriations Committee lost her bid for a sixth term to Democrat Troy Jackson, and as she told the New York Timesshe blames a wave of voter anger aimed directly at President Trump, not her. Collins says even her longtime supporters told her they were stepping back “to send a message to Trump,” despite his occasional rifts with the former president, including a vote to convict him in his second impeachment trial, a fact she says “everyone ignores.” “What bigger break could there be? It’s never enough. I want results and they want angry rhetoric.”
THE Times details how a tsunami of Trump policies and perceptions finally caught up with a moderate senator once considered nearly unbeatable: tariffs on Canada, an immigration crackdown that proved deadly in Maine, high fuel oil prices, and lingering resentment over her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court before he joined the majority that overturned Roe v. Wade. In rejecting her, Maine gave up a powerful appropriations chair position for a freshman senator with far less influence — an upset that the Tutor notes that Jackson succeeded in “just 101 days”, after Democratic candidate Graham Platner withdrew. Yet even on election night, Collins and her supporters believed she would defy the odds once again, as she made “a long, glowing pass” just before 10 p.m. through her watch party, according to the Atlantic in an article titled “Susan Collins Was Unlucky.” Just after midnight, she would call Jackson to make him concede. “She wouldn’t come back to the party,” says the Atlantic.
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