Susan Collins tries to keep Trump off the ballot in Maine

During a campaign stop in South Carolina last week, President Trump urged Republicans to turn out and vote as if he were on the ballot. 

Sen. Susan Collins (R), fighting an uphill re-election battle in blue-leaning Maine, is sending the opposite signal, flexing her independent streak and keeping her distance from Trump and Vice President Vance.  

In recent days, she has been the loudest elected Republican criticising Trump’s tariff war with Canada. Earlier this month, Collins was one of two GOP no votes on Todd Blanche, Trump’s new attorney general. And in July, she was a rare voice on the right calling for federal immigration officers to halt non-urgent traffic stops this summer after a deadly shooting in Biddeford, Maine.  

Lance Dutson, who served as a senior adviser on Collins’s 2020 Senate reelection and is not involved in her campaign this cycle, said the president served as Collins’s biggest challenge in her reelection.

“The discussion of [Supreme Court Justice Brett] Kavanaugh … or Canadian tariffs or any of these individual issues just absolutely pales in comparison to the general nausea people have about this administration right now,” he said, referring to her deeply controversial vote to confirm the conservative justice despite decades-old sexual assault claims. 

Collins was noticeably absent on Monday when Vance rallied the party in Brewer, Maine. 

“Senator Collins has a great working relationship with the Vice President,” her campaign told The Hill on Monday in a statement, citing a “personal schedule” that conflicted with Vance’s visit. Dutson also played down the significance of the Vance event. 

While Collins has pointed out that she joined Energy Secretary Chris Wright on a recent event promoting an energy storage facility, the dynamic is emblematic of Trump’s drag on Republicans in purple-state races, as his approval ratings hit all-time lows, both overall and on the economy. 

Troy Jackson, a logger and former state Senate president who won the Democratic nomination after Graham Platner dropped out, has missed no opportunities to capitalize on the vulnerability. 

Commenting on a clip of Vance’s speech on Monday, Jackson noted the vice president “called Susan Collins his ‘dear friend.’ No wonder why — she’s voted for Trump’s agenda 96% of the time.”

Jackson campaign spokesperson Maggie Amjad said in a statement that “Maine voters aren’t stupid, and they see the game that Susan Collins is playing.”

Collins........

© The Hill