U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) walks at the Senate Subway heading to a vote on the ninth day of a partial shutdown of the federal government at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S. October 9, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
Ex-conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin has a winning strategy for Democratic challengers going up against Republican senators with a record of coddling President Donald Trump.
Writing for The Contrarian on Thursday, Rubin outlined four simple ways that candidates can hit Republicans on not merely their approval of the Trump agenda, but also their refusal to stand up to some of the most disastrous policies for Americans.
First, she said, Republicans should be held accountable for their votes. She began by citing Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) as an eager supporter of the billions of extra dollars to fund Homeland Security's efforts to detain people as they wait for immigration trials. Thus far, Rubin wrote, "50 people have died while being detained by ICE." That's in addition to the protesters ICE agents have shot and killed. She could have stopped it, said Rubin. She also could have stopped the GOP's "Big, Beautiful Bill" that significantly cut healthcare subsidies and SNAP help while preserving a tax cut to billionaires.
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) is another example, she said, citing his vote to confirm Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Even after the Signal scandal, Sullivan continued his support. He, too, has rubber-stamped Trump's spending “tens of billions" on the Iran war. Now the U.S. has "sacrificed the lives of 18 brave American military personnel, depleted our munitions and lost free navigation of the Strait of Hormuz," wrote Rubin. Sullivan, she argued, refuses to stand up to the Trump administration, even as he refuses to promote women and people of color and commits "potentialwar crimes."
These are issues that could apply to scores of Republican lawmakers, she continued. They are to blame, she said, for the GOP's budget that resulted in "mass closings of rural hospitals, measles outbreaks, decimation of the rural economy, fires overwhelming DOGE-reduced emergency responders, devastation of veterans’ services, wholesale cuts to SNAP that leave millions without food assistance, deprivation of emergency relief services, ever-escalating prices aggravated by tariffs (which Congress could have short-circuited), the plethora of health and disease disasters spawned by DOGE cuts and RFK, Jr. nuttery, a generational loss of scientific research" and more.
Her second recommendation is to ignore "Republican-spewed nonsense." She means amplifying silly attacks on candidates like the Republicans claiming Texas Senate nominee James Talarico is somehow not masculine enough due to his diet or religious beliefs.
Third, Rubin said Democrats must respond in kind to Trump's claims that the Democratic Party is “communists.” She wants to see Democrats highlight Trump's insults as the "last-ditch defense of desperate MAGA candidates shilling for a corrupt regime in which oligarchs rig the system to get out of jail, exempt themselves from taxes, avoid accountability for misconduct and shift business costs onto the backs of ordinary Americans."
Finally, she said, and perhaps "most importantly," Democrats must put an end to the GOP cover-ups and "protection racket." Whether it's about the Jeffrey Epstein files, Trump family corruption, pardon scams or a slew of other examples of corruption. An anti-Trump campaign may work in some respects, but it has to be more specific and tied directly to GOP politicians enabling him.