Sen. Susan Collins walks in the Senate Subway at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. October 9, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
This week, Sarah Longwell's podcast focuses on people in Maine who feel Sen. Susan Collins (R) has abandoned them, along with whatever independence she once claimed to have.
Speaking to newspaper editor and former national political reporter Alex Seitz Wald, Longwell played clips from voters she spoke with, all concerned about worsening financial problems.
According to the focus group participants, there are very real concerns about surviving the upcoming winter financially. Some problems involve lumber costs, which have risen because of President Donald Trump's trade war with Canada. Heating oil is the other financial hardship. It has dramatically increased as a result of Trump's war with Iran. So, while issues are national ones, to locals in Maine, those big issues are now local too.
All of the voters that Longwell spoke with are people who cast ballots for President Joe Biden in 2020, but who also supported Collins.
"I was always a Susan Collins fan. She used to be very bipartisan," said one woman who voted for Biden and Collins in 2020. "She's in, you know, a state that tends to swing blue. So, for a Republican to be a senator in a state that tends to swing blue, you know, she really has to listen to both sides and cater to both sides. And she always did. And she did a lot of things that were good for the state of Maine. Note that word did. You know, she tends to vote with Trump, and I think it's going to kill her in this election."
She thinks a lot of folks are paying attention now when they perhaps weren't before.
Another woman learned about the pay-to-play scandal with defense contractor Navatek. The company received federal funding in exchange for campaign donations benefiting Susan Collins and other politicians. Collins denies any wrongdoing, and the investigation brought no charges against her.
Navatek’s former chief executive, Martin Kao, told the FBI that his company obtained lucrative government contracts by financially supporting influential lawmakers. ProPublica reported that Collins received $150,000 from a shell company that donated to a PAC supporting her. The allegations also say that Trump helped save her with the FBI investigation.
"She doesn't stand up for women," another woman lamented. "Whatever you believe in, she stood by [Supreme Court Justice Brett] Kavanaugh. She knew it. She allowed it. No, you lost my vote. You don't respect women. You don't let women make their own choices. I have a problem with that. You know, she's been doing the job. Okay, give her the benefit of the doubt. She's always tries. She was good at the game, but when she — when I saw her in Donald Trump's Oval Office with the Donald Trump goodie bag, I knew she was a sellout."
Some retain gratitude for her constituent services and describe her as intelligent and capable. Their rejection sounds reluctant and disappointed rather than hostile. They believe someone they once trusted no longer provides the independence they valued.
The woman who called Collins a sellout said the senator no longer looks out for her constituents and may have gone to far "Washington" over Maine.
"I just think she's been there too long, you know? I'm not going to pay for her to be there in a nursing home like Mitch McConnell. Okay? He looks I think more active muppet," the woman said. "I'm not going to vote for her. Um, and also like someone else said, I have very like mixed feelings about that because I do think she's very intelligent and that she can get things done. But I do think she's been in the role uh for too long."
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