SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) arrives at the Senate chamber as the Senate impeachment trial of U.S. President Donald Trump continues at the U.S. Capitol on January 30, 2020 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
With Trump-Aligned Votes as 'Anvil Around Her Neck,' Susan Collins Down 9 Points to Likely Dem Challenger
The four-term Republican senator from Maine who presents herself as a centrist has faced national criticism for her votes during the Trump administration.
May 28, 2020
New poll results released in a Bangor Daily News column Thursday shows Democratic Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon leading Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins by nine points--just the latest sign that the November election could deny Collins a fifth term.
Conducted by nonpartisan Victory Geek, the poll had voters consider Collins versus Gideon and Betsy Sweet, an activist and political organizer also seeking the Democratic nomination for the Senate race in the July 14 primary. A third Democratic candidate, attorney Bre Kidman, was not included in the survey.
Voters preferred Gideon to Collins 51%-42%, with 7% undecided. Voters also preferred Sweet to Collins, though the outcome was much closer at 44%-43%, with 12% undecided. Ultimately, voters preferred any Democrat to Collins 49%-39%, with 12% undecided. The margin of sampling error was +-4.32%.
The polling was commissioned by "Swing Hard. Run Fast. Turn Left!," a progressive group run by Ethan Strimling, a former mayor and state senator from Portland who co-authors the "Agree to Disagree" Bangor Daily News column with Phil Harriman, former town councilor and state senator from Yarmouth.
Collins, a self-described "centrist" who was re-elected in 2014 with 68.5% of the vote, has seen her popularity plummet during Donald Trump's presidency, particularly since her decisive vote in October 2018 to confirm U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after he was accused of sexual assault. That decision provoked protests in Maine and a national effort to unseat Collins.
In a January Morning Consult poll, Collins displaced Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as the nation's least popular senator, with a disapproval rating of 52% in Maine. The Hill reported at the time that "Collins' net approval rating has dropped 10 points in Maine since the end of September, a sign of the intense fire she has taken from critics since the House launched its impeachment inquiry."
Criticism over her votes and positions that align with Trump and McConnell's agenda has prompted national media coverage questioning Collins' future in the U.S. Senate. As Politico reported earlier this month:
Dan Shea, author of the most recent Colby College poll, says Collins' case for independence wasn't helped by her vote to acquit Trump at his impeachment trial in February. Nor was her assertion that the president "had learned his lesson" from the ordeal (a day after she made that statement, Trump told reporters, not the for the first time, his conduct was "perfect"). Nor was her refusal to answer questions about whether she voted for Trump in the Republican primary in March.
"Every decision she makes seems to align her more closely with the Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell movement," Shea says. "Here in Maine, that's become the anvil around her neck."
Politico noted that the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), an environmental advocacy group that endorsed Collins in two previous campaigns, is backing Gideon for the 2020 race. Tiernan Sittenfeld, LCV's senior vice president of government affairs, explained the group's decision.
"A member of Congress is expected to make up her mind about what is in the best interest of her constituents. Again and again, during Trump's presidency, Collins has shown she's not willing to do that," Sittenfeld said. "We have an extreme and radical president who has so little interest in what is good for places like Maine. We need a champion who will stand up to him."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
New poll results released in a Bangor Daily News column Thursday shows Democratic Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon leading Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins by nine points--just the latest sign that the November election could deny Collins a fifth term.
Conducted by nonpartisan Victory Geek, the poll had voters consider Collins versus Gideon and Betsy Sweet, an activist and political organizer also seeking the Democratic nomination for the Senate race in the July 14 primary. A third Democratic candidate, attorney Bre Kidman, was not included in the survey.
Voters preferred Gideon to Collins 51%-42%, with 7% undecided. Voters also preferred Sweet to Collins, though the outcome was much closer at 44%-43%, with 12% undecided. Ultimately, voters preferred any Democrat to Collins 49%-39%, with 12% undecided. The margin of sampling error was +-4.32%.
The polling was commissioned by "Swing Hard. Run Fast. Turn Left!," a progressive group run by Ethan Strimling, a former mayor and state senator from Portland who co-authors the "Agree to Disagree" Bangor Daily News column with Phil Harriman, former town councilor and state senator from Yarmouth.
Collins, a self-described "centrist" who was re-elected in 2014 with 68.5% of the vote, has seen her popularity plummet during Donald Trump's presidency, particularly since her decisive vote in October 2018 to confirm U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after he was accused of sexual assault. That decision provoked protests in Maine and a national effort to unseat Collins.
In a January Morning Consult poll, Collins displaced Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as the nation's least popular senator, with a disapproval rating of 52% in Maine. The Hill reported at the time that "Collins' net approval rating has dropped 10 points in Maine since the end of September, a sign of the intense fire she has taken from critics since the House launched its impeachment inquiry."
Criticism over her votes and positions that align with Trump and McConnell's agenda has prompted national media coverage questioning Collins' future in the U.S. Senate. As Politico reported earlier this month:
Dan Shea, author of the most recent Colby College poll, says Collins' case for independence wasn't helped by her vote to acquit Trump at his impeachment trial in February. Nor was her assertion that the president "had learned his lesson" from the ordeal (a day after she made that statement, Trump told reporters, not the for the first time, his conduct was "perfect"). Nor was her refusal to answer questions about whether she voted for Trump in the Republican primary in March.
"Every decision she makes seems to align her more closely with the Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell movement," Shea says. "Here in Maine, that's become the anvil around her neck."
Politico noted that the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), an environmental advocacy group that endorsed Collins in two previous campaigns, is backing Gideon for the 2020 race. Tiernan Sittenfeld, LCV's senior vice president of government affairs, explained the group's decision.
"A member of Congress is expected to make up her mind about what is in the best interest of her constituents. Again and again, during Trump's presidency, Collins has shown she's not willing to do that," Sittenfeld said. "We have an extreme and radical president who has so little interest in what is good for places like Maine. We need a champion who will stand up to him."
New poll results released in a Bangor Daily News column Thursday shows Democratic Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon leading Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins by nine points--just the latest sign that the November election could deny Collins a fifth term.
Conducted by nonpartisan Victory Geek, the poll had voters consider Collins versus Gideon and Betsy Sweet, an activist and political organizer also seeking the Democratic nomination for the Senate race in the July 14 primary. A third Democratic candidate, attorney Bre Kidman, was not included in the survey.
Voters preferred Gideon to Collins 51%-42%, with 7% undecided. Voters also preferred Sweet to Collins, though the outcome was much closer at 44%-43%, with 12% undecided. Ultimately, voters preferred any Democrat to Collins 49%-39%, with 12% undecided. The margin of sampling error was +-4.32%.
The polling was commissioned by "Swing Hard. Run Fast. Turn Left!," a progressive group run by Ethan Strimling, a former mayor and state senator from Portland who co-authors the "Agree to Disagree" Bangor Daily News column with Phil Harriman, former town councilor and state senator from Yarmouth.
Collins, a self-described "centrist" who was re-elected in 2014 with 68.5% of the vote, has seen her popularity plummet during Donald Trump's presidency, particularly since her decisive vote in October 2018 to confirm U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after he was accused of sexual assault. That decision provoked protests in Maine and a national effort to unseat Collins.
In a January Morning Consult poll, Collins displaced Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as the nation's least popular senator, with a disapproval rating of 52% in Maine. The Hill reported at the time that "Collins' net approval rating has dropped 10 points in Maine since the end of September, a sign of the intense fire she has taken from critics since the House launched its impeachment inquiry."
Criticism over her votes and positions that align with Trump and McConnell's agenda has prompted national media coverage questioning Collins' future in the U.S. Senate. As Politico reported earlier this month:
Dan Shea, author of the most recent Colby College poll, says Collins' case for independence wasn't helped by her vote to acquit Trump at his impeachment trial in February. Nor was her assertion that the president "had learned his lesson" from the ordeal (a day after she made that statement, Trump told reporters, not the for the first time, his conduct was "perfect"). Nor was her refusal to answer questions about whether she voted for Trump in the Republican primary in March.
"Every decision she makes seems to align her more closely with the Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell movement," Shea says. "Here in Maine, that's become the anvil around her neck."
Politico noted that the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), an environmental advocacy group that endorsed Collins in two previous campaigns, is backing Gideon for the 2020 race. Tiernan Sittenfeld, LCV's senior vice president of government affairs, explained the group's decision.
"A member of Congress is expected to make up her mind about what is in the best interest of her constituents. Again and again, during Trump's presidency, Collins has shown she's not willing to do that," Sittenfeld said. "We have an extreme and radical president who has so little interest in what is good for places like Maine. We need a champion who will stand up to him."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.