Senator Susan Collins (R-ME)
Maine Senator Susan Collins has a steep hill to climb to reelection in 2020. In the past two years, she has undermined her centrist persona and voters in Maine have caught on. If she chooses to run again in 2020, she would enter the contest as the underdog.
Collins was infamously the deciding vote on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation and for reasons unknown to political observers, she took ownership of the GOP’s strategy to undermine serious accusations made against him. Her nationally televised defense of his nomination, not to mention her embrace of Kavanaugh-adjacent conspiracies, have already undermined her brand. American Bridge will amplify this message every step of the way between now and November of 2020.
Collins is in lockstep with the GOP's destructive agenda.
Collins has a reputation as one of the last remaining moderates in the Senate. But a closer look at her record shows that her centrism comes and goes when it’s politically convenient. When push comes to shove, she inevitably falls in line with Republican leadership. Take healthcare, the electoral juggernaut of 2018. Collins made a big show of opposing multiple Republican ACA repeal bills as the 2018 election approached and voters turned against GOP healthcare sabotage. But before it was politically expedient to break from her party, she was fully in line with a Republican agenda that included full repeal of Obamacare and voted for a full repeal.
Collins was also a deciding vote for the Republican tax bill — which ballooned the deficit while seriously undermining healthcare by repealing the individual mandate. And that’s before you examine the additional economic impacts of the legislation further rigging the economy for the rich at everyone else’s expense. She’s a moderate in name only; at the end of the day she will side with a Republican caucus that is just too extreme for Maine.
Collins has confirmed dozens of Trump’s anti-choice judicial nominees, contradicting her supposed support of women’s reproductive rights. Click here to learn more about the anti-choice nominees whose lifetime appointments were rubber-stamped by Susan Collins.
Collins is on notice.
American Bridge will leverage dozens of hours of tracking and media monitoring footage in our archives and existing opposition research to target Collins out of the gate in 2019.
Collins is the most vulnerable Senate incumbent of 2020, and in a year that will be a referendum on a deeply unpopular Republican president, it’s easy to see that her days are numbered. If she chooses to forego retirement and run for reelection, she will lose.