Behind the scenes of Democrats’ full-throttle effort to unseat Maine’s Susan Collins: report

In order to obtain a majority in the United States Senate in 2020, Democrats will need to not only maintain all of the Senate seats they are defending, but also, flip four seats presently held by Republicans. That’s a heavy lift, but it’s not impossible if the Democratic presidential nominee performs well against President Donald Trump — which remains to be seen — and there is a down-ballot effect. One of the seats Democrats are longing to flip is the one presently held by Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, and Democratic efforts to unseat Collins are the focus of a Vox report by Ella Nilsen.

If Collins is reelected in 2020, she will begin serving her fifth term in the Senate in January 2021. Democrats in Maine have failed in previous efforts to unseat the 66-year-old Republican, who is generally conservative but not far-right or extreme. First elected to the Senate in 1996, Collins went on to defeat Democratic challengers in 2002, 2008 and 2014. But there is a major difference this time: Trump, an incredibly divisive figure, is president, and Collins could be vulnerable if enough Maine voters believe she is too favorable to him.

Nilsen explains in her Vox article that although Collins has had a reputation for being “moderate,” her “voting record tracks closely with the president’s agenda.” According to CNN’s analysis, Nilsen notes, Collins voted with fellow Republicans 87% of the time in 2017. And one of Collins’ greatest vulnerabilities is her vote in favor of Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.

“Collins’ legacy in the age of Trump,” Nilsen observes, “was cemented with her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court after Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault by his high school classmate, Christine Blasey Ford — an allegation Kavanaugh denied.”

One of the people Vox interviewed was Sandy Maisel, a Maine-based political analyst and professor at Colby College in Waterville. Maisel told Vox that Collins isn’t as much of a maverick as the late Arizona Sen. John McCain.

“Despite the fact she would like to be, she is not John McCain,” Maisel asserted. “She doesn’t have the moral rectitude. She’s not going to stand up on these issues and say, ‘This is who I am.’ She frets so much about how she’s going to vote and is the last person to commit.”

Collins’ approval ratings in Maine have not been great in recent months. Morning Consult has found that she has about 52% approval in her state, while Critical Insights has reported a mere 41% approval for the veteran senator. And those are the sort of poll numbers, Nilsen reports, that are making Democrats feel cautiously optimistic.

Alex Stack, a spokesperson for the Maine Democratic Party, told Vox that Collins’ pro-Kavanaugh vote inspired a lot of “grassroots energy” against her in Maine. “People keep wanting to step up for us,” Stack told Vox. “That energy has not dissipated, it’s only grown.”

Pam Cunningham, a Maine voter and co-director of the liberal/progressive group Mainers for Accountable Leadership, complained to Vox that Collins isn’t “anywhere near as moderate as she’d like us to believe.” Cunningham isn’t sure that enough Maine residents are dissatisfied with Collins to vote her out of office in 2020, but she seems cautiously optimistic — citing the Kavanaugh vote as a definite vulnerability.

Collins, Cunningham told Vox, “comes across so nice, and she was very nice. But there was a point at which she kind of flipped a switch. Susan Collins the woman went away, and Susan Collins the politician took over.”