'No Accountability': Platner Takes Aim at Collins' Kavanaugh Vote in Two New Ads
"She lied," says a new ad focusing on Collins' broken promise that she would not support a Supreme Court justice who showed "hostility" to abortion rights. "Now, she won't even admit she was wrong."
Within 48 hours of US Sen. Susan Collins declaring that she stood by her 2018 vote in favor of confirming Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, even though her decision helped secure a right-wing majority that later gutted abortion rights—which the Maine Republican has long claimed to support—Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner released a new ad saying her statement exemplified Collins' lack of "accountability."
The ad, released Thursday morning, pointed to Collins' pledge that she "would not support a nominee who demonstrated hostility to Roe v. Wade," months before she cast the deciding vote in favor of Kavanaugh—after a drawn-out confirmation process during which he was credibly accused of sexual assault and rights advocates raised alarm about his record on abortion rights.
Kavanaugh had questioned the idea that Roe, which affirmed Americans had the right to abortion care, was settled law in a 2003 email when he was a lawyer for the George W. Bush administration. He also dissented in a 2017 case in which an undocumented immigrant minor was trying to access abortion care, saying the government should have blocked her from doing so. He refused to tell senators clearly whether he believed Roe had been correctly decided.
After Roe was overturned in 2022, Collins said Kavanaugh had "misled" her by telling her he would respect the precedent set by the 1973 ruling—even though he had clearly shown what she called "hostility" to the decision.
This week, she insisted to a reporter, "I do not regret that vote," to which Platner replied on social media: "You should."
"She lied," says the narrator in the ad released Thursday. "Now, she won't even admit she was wrong."
Collins, the ad continued, is "wrong on Kavanaugh—wrong for Maine."
The ad was the second released by the Platner campaign in two days, and both focused on her record of voting with the far right even as she's spent decades casting herself as a "moderate" Republican who supports bipartisan legislation and women's rights.
In reality, said the ad released Wednesday by the campaign, "she's only 'bipartisan' when it doesn't matter."
The ad highlights Collins' record of voting with President Donald Trump "95% of the time," including when she's cast deciding votes on Kavanaugh and "to defund healthcare and hospitals."
Susan Collins votes with Trump 95% of the time. She is only "bipartisan" when it doesn't matter in the slightest.
Our new ad ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/er8HCAVx4K
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) June 17, 2026
While Collins has campaigned on being one of three Republicans who opposed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—which had sufficient GOP support to allow the senator to cast a "no" vote without threatening its passage—she voted to advance the legislation out of the Senate Appropriations Committee, clearing the way for it to pass.
"She even sided with Trump giving billionaires and corporations a handout, paid for by cuts to Medicaid and [the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program]," the ad says, again referring to her vote advancing the GOP megabill last year.
"Susan Collins is only bipartisan when it doesn't matter," says the ad. "This election, we're not forgetting what does."
