President Donald Trump is reportedly “very irritated” with Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), the moderate Republican whose re‑election decision next year is increasingly seen as the linchpin of the GOP’s slim Senate majority.
This tension threatens to unsettle Republicans across the country, Politico reported Wednesday. An unnamed Republican senator told Politico that Trump is "very irritated at Susan — very, I can tell."
They added: “But she doesn’t care, because the more Trump gets irritated with her, the better it is for her politics back home.”
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Collins, who chairs the influential Appropriations Committee, recently clashed with Trump and Senate leadership. Earlier this month, GOP leaders fast‑tracked Trump’s massive spending bill, brushing aside her warnings that deep cuts to Maine’s safety net would be “harmful.” Now, they’re pressing ahead with a Trump‑led move to claw back $9 billion in funding — much of which Collins had previously helped secure — jeopardizing the bipartisan budget process she oversees.
The report noted that Democrats, needing four seats to regain majority and wary of losing their own tight contests in Georgia and Michigan, regard Maine as their best flip opportunity. Collins’s potential retirement would hand them a clearer path — and a financial edge — in targeting tougher races.
Meanwhile, her tenure atop the Appropriations Committee — a role she fought for over decades—is off to a rocky start. Critics warn the maneuvers by both Trump-aligned officials and Democrats threatening a funding standoff could undermine her authority, leading to a patchwork continuing resolution — or even a government shutdown when the fiscal year ends Sept. 30.
Still, Collins insists she's moving forward with her re‑election bid, buoyed by a robust fundraising haul—$2.4 million in the second quarter, and $5.25 million on hand as of June 30.
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Yet Republicans are bracing for the fallout, per the report. A Collins retirement would blow open the competitive map for 2026, rewriting the battleground calculus and reshaping the Senate’s balance of power.