The first time Biddeford resident Anthony Burgess could vote in 2014, he cast his ballot for Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins. A registered Democrat, he wanted to contribute to the Pine Tree State’s reputation as independent, he said, and he thought Collins embodied that. But he never voted for her again.

Several Mainers who regularly gather to protest the senior senator in the York County town similarly said that at some point during Collins’ decades-long career, they too voted for her. For most, their view of her shifted during Donald Trump’s first presidency and has solidified during his second.

But Collins won in 2020 without the support of people like Burgess. Last time Collins was up for reelection, her Democratic opponent Sara Gideon, then the Speaker of the Maine House, focused her campaign on whether Collins had “changed” since she was first elected to the Senate in 1996.

”She tried to make the election about Sen. Collins,” said state Sen. Rick Bennett, a moderate Republican representing Oxford, “and it didn’t work.”

The November 2026 midterm election, when Collins will be up for re-election, will be something of a referendum on Trump, Bennett said. However, he added that it also matters who Collins’ opponent is. A year and a half out from Election Day, some have already started to make themselves known.

Collins told Maine Morning Star she intends to run for reelection in 2026 and highlighted her record of delivering for Maine, primarily financially, as why she feels she remains the best person to represent the state.

That focus of hers has previously helped unify a winning coalition of supporters. However, with the increasing demands for loyalty to Trump, slim Republican majorities in Congress and Collins’ race seen as an opportunity for Democrats to gain seats in the Senate, legal scholars, her critics on both sides of the aisle and polling signal the tightrope she has been walking is thinning.

Known opponents

Collins will face at least two primary challengers: Carmen Calabrese of Kennebunkport and Daniel Smeriglio of Frenchville have filed to run as Republicans. Calabrese, who moved to Maine five years ago from Florida, is a driver for Walmart and former small business owner. Smeriglio runs the rightwing Voice of the People USA radio and activist group.

An independent has also entered the race: Phillip Rench of Waterboro, who sits on the board for the Maine Space Corporation and owns Ossipee Hill Farm and Observatory. He was a former senior engineer at Elon Musk’s SpaceX, though he said he has no association with Musk or the company now aside from stocks he was awarded as an employee.

Two Democrats are also vying for Maine’s U.S. Senate seat so far.

Jordan Wood of Bristol, originally from Lewiston, spent about a decade working in politics in Washington, D.C., including as chief of staff to former Democratic U.S. Rep. Katie Porter of California.

Natasha Alcala of Madawaska is currently a fashion designer who moved to Maine from California a little over four years ago. She has degrees in international relations and criminal justice and is a U.S. Navy veteran. Alcala previously filed to run against U.S. Sen. Angus King in 2024 but withdrew before the primary.

A focus on money, in many respects

Last election cycle, Collins’ pitch to Mainers focused on her ability to secure federal funding for the state through her then-expected ascent to chair one of the chamber’s most powerful committees, a position she now holds and emphasized when asked why she believes she’s still best poised to represent Maine.

Susan Collins has reached a pinnacle of authority. How will she use it?

“By climbing that ladder in the last three years I have been able to secure more than a billion dollars for hundreds of projects in communities across our state,” Collins said, “That would not have happened without the seniority that I have.”

Collins highlighted earmarks she’s secured for investments throughout each of Maine’s 16 counties as well as legislation that will impact Mainers more broadly, specifically co-authoring the Social Security Fairness Act, which was signed into law under former President Joe Biden earlier this year and restored full benefits for millions of public sector workers.

Calabrese acknowledged that Collins’ role as top appropriator is a strength. “You can’t argue with that,” he said, “but I look at it as well, I thank you for bringing it, but you’re also spending my money. It’s my tax dollars.”

And Calabrese thinks those tax dollars would go farther if Collins sided with Trump more often.

“If you agree more with some of the stances that he has, maybe you’ll do better,” Calabrese said.

Rench said he doesn’t think Collins’ continued pitch that she is best equipped to deliver financially for the state is a valid point.

“What we need to do as a state is become less dependent on federal dollars,” he said.

Rench said he would do this by building a stronger economic foundation for Maine families, including by addressing what he sees as “brain drain” in the state by overhauling the school system to have both college and trade school tracks. As someone who left the state after college to pursue opportunities in the space industry and then returned, he said he understands why young people leave and wants to change it.

He is also proposing reinventing industries, such as creating a federal reserve of dimensional lumber, growing Maine’s food production and processing capabilities to serve the country and positioning Maine as a leader in the space industry.

Wood previously helped lead End Citizens United, a political action committee working to reverse the 2010 Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Campaign Act, which deregulated restrictions on independent political spending by corporations and unions.

Some of his top priorities will be anti-corruption reform and getting big money out of politics. He said he plans to lead by example with his own campaign by not taking any money from corporate PACs or lobbyists. He is also committed to not becoming a lobbyist after serving in office, refuses to engage in selling individual stocks and will prohibit his family members and those of his staff from lobbying his office for issues.

In light of Trump slashing federal funding, Alcala said she would propose Maine partner with other states that have large gross domestic products, such as California, to ensure federal funding inconsistency doesn’t prevent people from having their basic needs met, such as by accessing low-income food assistance or making higher education free.

“With our combined GDP, we can definitely make it so that we can help those that need the extra funding,” Alcala said.

Smeriglio did not respond to interview requests.

Accessibility

Constituents who have reached out to Collins — including Cape Elizabeth resident Jerry Kaufman, an independent who said he emails Collins nearly every day, and Cokie Giles, a registered nurse at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor who regularly attends federal lobby days — argue they don’t feel heard.

A common critique these two Mainers and others have is that Collins hasn’t hosted a town hall in at least 25 years.

Collins deferred to her press secretary Blake Kernen when asked about constituent requests for town halls.

“She prefers smaller group meetings or Zooms, rather than holding town halls where very few people get to speak, and the level of civility is often not that high,” the spokesperson said. “These forums were also difficult for people who were more reserved or less comfortable speaking in public.”

Kernan also said Collins individually meets with thousands of Mainers every year in her office and during events across the state.

These frustrations about accessibility are not unique to the Republican senator. Mainers have started to hold town halls to air their concerns, whether their current members of Congress agree to attend or not. In Maine, Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree is an outlier, as she held in-person town halls in early April, her first since 2017.

In public events so far, some of Collins’ opponents have deliberately focused on personal appeals to voters to set themselves apart.

Wood has held two town halls since he launched his campaign over a month ago. He said he will hold a town hall in each of Maine’s 16 counties during the race and, if elected, once a quarter. Wood also plans, if elected, to make his calendar public every month so his constituents can see who he is spending time with, he said.

Rench opened up his observatory this spring to meet constituents and intends to travel around the state with his mobile telescope to continue one-on-one discussions.

Alcala said she plans to start a YouTube channel to offer a more candid perspective into herself and her views for voters.

Calabrese is starting with speaking at county Republican meetings and trying to engage with people at events such as upcoming county fairs.

Lessons learned from elections past

Some of those challenging Collins are actively trying not to make the mistakes they think Gideon made last election cycle.

Rench made a list of criticisms he heard about Gideon, down to her wearing clothing from Patagonia, an L.L. Bean rival. But the one that is guiding him most is focusing on what he could bring to the Senate, not what he thinks Collins lacks.

“I don’t think people want to hear critiques of Collins,” Rench said. “They know who she is.”

In Rench’s view, neither of the major parties adequately represent the working class, which is why he chose to run as an independent. In particular, he said, “I still think the Democratic Party is stuck in grief.”

Nationally, Senate Democrats have previewed their campaign messaging, already targeting Collins in particular.

The campaign arm of Senate Democrats began running digital ads in April against Collins and Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina that highlight the Trump administration’s plans to cut phone services for Social Security, though the agency has not followed through on that plan. In response to this, Collins highlighted her work passing the Social Security Fairness Act.

Wood, who is running as a Democrat, is bringing lessons learned from the presidential election, particularly his party’s estrangement with working-class and young voters, into how he’s shaping his campaign.

“It’s our responsibility as candidates and as a political party to prove to that voter that we are the party that they should see as the side fighting for them,” Wood said. “I will spend as much time as I can in these communities, telling them about my vision for the future and the policies that I’ll champion to make their lives better.”

The average age of Congress has been a concern raised in elections past.

Collins is 72 years old and will be running for her sixth term as senator. Wood, Wrench and Alcala emphasized that they want to offer a younger perspective to Congress than Collins.

Calabrese is more so focused on the length of time Collins has held office. He said he’d only serve up to two terms if elected.

“I think it’s time for some people — I mean we’re not Middle America but Middle America-thinking people — who understand what’s going on boots on the ground to get involved,” he said.

Can Collins continue to tow the line?

Both parties have grown more ideologically cohesive creating a political environment that’s less hospitable for lawmakers who straddle the center — now a rarity in Congress.

Collins became a more reliable vote for her party during Trump’s last presidency compared to her track record before. In 2017, 87% of her votes were party-line. This was a shift, as Congressional Quarterly found between 1997 and 2016 that she voted with her party on party-line votes only 59% of the time.

But last year, she bucked her party the most out of all senators. An analysis from Roll Call found Collins sided with Republicans 47.8% of the time in 2024, although largely because of her votes in favor of President Joe Biden’s nominees. Her level of bipartisanship fluctuates depending on the measure, but she remains a rarity in the Trump era, neither endorsing the president nor fully turning her back on him.

“I don’t want to say she’s on the outside of her own party, but to a certain extent she is,” said Mark Brewer, chair of the political science department at the University of Maine.

Fewer people are running, and succeeding, with bipartisan campaigns. However, the success of Collins, the only senator from her party representing a state Trump lost in 2024, and Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Golden in the second district — which also went for Trump — exemplifies that Maine is still holding onto that tradition, Brewer said. Bennett’s career as a prominent bipartisan voice is another example, Brewer added.

Those running against Collins have taken more pointed stances, both for and against Trump.

Wood said he spent the January 6 attack barricaded in Porter’s office, after which he co-founded democracyFIRST, a pro-democracy organization dedicated to combating growing threats to the free and fair elections.

“I think [Collins] had ample opportunity to be courageous to stand up to Donald Trump and her own party and she has failed to do so,” Wood said.

Calling Trump a “wanna-be dictator, authoritarian that is trying to centralize all power and authority in himself,” he said if Democrats are able to secure a Senate majority in the 2026 election that will provide a better opportunity to oppose the president during the remaining two years of his term.

As Trump slashes federal spending, Collins’ promise to deliver for Maine is tested

Alcala is also pitching herself as a candidate who will stand up to Trump. “We’re in a coup d’etat by Trump and Elon Musk,” she said. “The fact that Trump is taking money away from Mainers, whether they’re Republican, liberal, what have you, the fact that he’s doing that means that we can’t rely on the current government that we have.”

On the other hand, Calabrese said if elected he would help codify many of Trump’s executive orders into law. He commended Trump’s approach to immigration policy. “All this illegal immigration that’s one thing that I totally agree with him on,” he said.

He also supports Trump’s push to make the U.S. a global leader in Artificial Intelligence and the cuts made by his Department of Government Efficacy.

Calabrese said, “the President is not a king,” noting that he’d try to tow the line between helping the president follow through with his plans while still respecting the balance of power.

However, Calabrese said, “If he needs to take his executive orders to the Supreme Court, well that’s the checks and balances.”

When it comes to the Supreme Court, Rench was also motivated to run because of Collins’ pivotal vote that helped seat Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

“I have a nine year old daughter and after Sen. Collins, in my opinion, enabled the reversal of Roe vs. Wade,” Rench said, “I no longer trust her with my daughter’s future.”

Collins voted for Kavanaugh after she said he gave her private assurances he wasn’t a threat to the landmark abortion ruling that he later voted to overturn.

Early surveys show the senator with much lower favorability than ever before.

A poll from Morning Consult found that since last quarter, Collins’ net approval declined by 12 percentage points — more than that of any other senator. According to the poll, 51% of Maine voters disapprove of Collins, down from 47% at the end of last year.

Another poll commissioned by a top Democratic super PAC shows Collins is being pinched on both sides.

“A big part of Collins’ problem is that when it comes to Trump her approach is just antagonizing everyone,” the pollster wrote in a memo.

The survey of 569 registered Maine voters showed 81% of voters who supported Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris think the senator votes with Trump too often and 73% of Trump voters think she doesn’t vote with Trump often enough. Only 10% think she’s striking the right balance.

But on Monday, Pan Atlantic Research released its latest independent Omnibus Poll capturing the opinions of 840 likely voters and found close to an even split between those who find Collins favorable or unfavorable, similar to its polling in September.

“A year and a half out from Election Day, it’s far too early to poll right now,” Kernan, Collins’ spokesperson, said.

Pollsters have gotten Collins wrong before. The day before the election in 2020, Maine Senate polls showed Collins’ Democratic opponent Gideon ahead by six points. Collins went on to win by almost 9%.

Some speculate she appealed to undecided voters in the end and that pollsters underestimated that Mainers would split tickets.

Wood noted that Collins voted against Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett right before the 2020 election.

“It was a reminder that she has a tendency to be independent sometimes and there was a hope that she could be a catalyst in some way for a post-Trump Republican Party, that was the Republican Party they grew up with,” Wood said of voters. “That did not come to fruition. I think that voters now have a much clearer understanding of the threat in front of us.”

But beyond this race, pollsters across the country failed in 2020, as well as in 2016, to accurately capture the zeitgeist, particularly for working class voters in rural areas.

When it comes to Collins’ continued independent, deliver-for-Maine pitch, Brewer said, “I think it’s going to be harder for her to do that, to run that kind of campaign. It doesn’t mean that she can’t pull it off.”

Maine Morning Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lauren McCauley for questions: info@mainemorningstar.com.

After a campaign promise to bring in outsized federal dollars for Maine, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins won reelection during Trump’s first term, overcoming a record amount of spending against her and defying public polls. At the start of the president’s second term, Collins rose to the helm of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the first time a Mainer has chaired one of the upper chamber’s most powerful committees in 92 years.

However, Maine’s longest-serving member of Congress has reached this pinnacle of authority as President Donald Trump is attempting to flip the system on its head. His administration, by Collins’ own admission, has unjustly rescinded congressionally appropriated funds, at times singling out Maine in what are widely considered retaliatory actions over the state’s defiance of his executive order rolling back transgender rights.

During Trump’s second term so far, Collins, a Republican, has bucked the executive periodically, particularly with attempts to reign in tariffs by reasserting congressional control and voting against a budget framework passed by the Senate in April because of possible cuts to Medicaid, the state-federal health program for low-income people and some people with disabilities. Though, in the budget currently being considered, she is supportive of adding work requirements to limit Medicaid eligibility.

Some of her constituents want to see more public pushback.

“I focus on results, not rhetoric,” Collins said in an interview. “My goal is not to get on Fox News and MSNBC and rant and rave.”

Outlining her strategy for Maine Morning Star, Collins said she’s had success restoring some funding largely due to conversations outside of public view, relying on her long-developed relationships.

“It is far more effective for me to, for example, restore the funding that the administration wants to cut for the Low Income Heating Assistance Program, LIHEAP, which is so important to the state of Maine, than it is to go make a fiery speech to anywhere that doesn’t result in any change,” Collins said.

But some constituents argue a piecemeal approach to restoring funds will ultimately be ineffective as overall democratic checks and balances are tested.

Collins’ public use of power

During Trump’s first few weeks back in office, Collins said she hoped the courts would side with Congress if the president’s attempts to control spending were litigated.

Now, with numerous cases in the courts, Collins said, “some of the actions taken by the administration have and will be overturned in court, and others Congress will overturn through the appropriations process.”

She added, “When I disagree with the actions of the administration, I have not hesitated to intervene.”

Collins said she consulted with the Trump administration in order to restore the U.S. Department of Agriculture grants to the University of Maine, renegotiate the Maine Sea Grant, secure an exception to the hiring freeze at Acadia National Park and reverse the cancellation of a decades-old program that allows parents to register their newborns for a Social Security number while at hospitals. Though Collins’ spokesperson told Maine Morning Star that Social Security Administration Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek told the senator it was an error but reporting later revealed that he deliberately sought to punish Maine after Gov. Janet Mills’ heated exchange with Trump over the state’s transgender protections.

But some Maine voters argue Collins should be using her seniority — as the seventh most senior member of the Senate and the most senior Republican woman — for more than piecemeal fixes.

Falmouth resident Anne Scheer — who carried a sign during a Tax Day protest in Augusta that read “Where’s Susan?” — said she wants the senator to rally her caucus to stand up for democracy, adding that she doesn’t think that has to be an anti-Trump message.

“She needs to talk with her fellow Republicans and say, ‘This is enough,’” Scheer said.

Cape Elizabeth resident Jerry Kaufman, an independent who protested against Collins in Biddeford in April, said he’d vote for Collins if she could convince her colleagues to confront the president to say “stop the foolishness.”

“Show some leadership and bring some people along with you,” Kaufman said.

At that same protest, Biddeford resident Anthony Burgess, a registered Democrat who voted for Collins once in 2014, criticized her statements of concern and disappointment about some of the Trump administration’s actions as lacking conviction.

He said independent U.S. Sen. Angus King’s attendance at the “Hands Off” rally in Portland in April demonstrated for him a refusal to cow to Trump.

“Her vote is the mechanism of government but she has a platform that she could be speaking from,” Burgess said.

When asked what her response is to those who say she should be doing more to ensure the separation of powers remains, Collins pointed to her questioning officials in subcommittee hearings.

One main purpose of subcommittees is to hold hearings on spending proposals during which members can directly question agency heads. Collins has questioned several, including U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the proposed elimination of the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

“We’re actually holding these subcommittee hearings at a breakneck pace to evaluate spending requests and reductions, as well as to assess compliance with congressional intent and enacted laws,” Collins said.

Exercising private influence

However, Collins said the public does not see what she feels is her most efficient tactic.

“My goal is to get things fixed and to get problems solved, and I do that through the federal hearings where I’m laying the foundation for restoration of the cuts in biomedical research, which is an extraordinarily high priority for me,” Collins said, as an example. “But also I do it privately by calling up Cabinet members.”

Collins said she is so far largely approaching her qualms with the administration through these one-on-one conversations.

This tactic has burned her at times in the past, notably when Collins voted for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after she said he gave her private assurances he wasn’t a threat to Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion ruling that he later voted to overturn.

More recently, ahead of the deadline to avoid a government shutdown, Collins said she started texting with Trump’s billionaire adviser Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency. That outreach does not appear to have gone as planned, at least for the immediate outcome.

While Collins initially said she was “absolutely” opposed to a full-year stop gap approach, she told Politico that Republican leaders instructed her to start writing a plan for that approach anyway. The version that passed, drafted by House GOP leadership, was ultimately pushed through with limited input from spending leaders of either chamber.

But in other cases, she’s touted success that she’s had with these conversations that happen behind closed doors, such as with the restoration of the USDA funding and renegotiation of the Maine Sea Grant.

“Because I have these relationships with the president’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and with Cabinet members, I have been able to restore funding that was in jeopardy,” Collins said.

Mark Brewer, chair of the political science department at the University of Maine, sees this as a strength unique to Collins.

“Given that she’s the only Republican member of the current Maine delegation and she’s the only person with a committee chair, I think she’s better positioned to have those communications than any of the other members,” Brewer said.

But while Collins sees these behind-the-scenes negotiations as the most effective way to restore funding that, as she puts it, has been arbitrarily and unfairly cut from Maine, when it comes to attempts to gut entire programs, “that’s going to take legislation,” she said.

Republicans’ ‘big, beautiful bill’

The sprawling budget bill is the main vehicle where such attempts are currently being made.

Cokie Giles, a registered nurse at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, protested with National Nurses United outside Collins’ office in Portland in March to demand the senator oppose the possible cuts to Medicaid in the budget.

While Collins often talks about her ability to work across the aisle, Giles said, “Well, work on your own side, and don’t let these cuts go through.”

After Collins, citing concerns about possible Medicaid cuts, was one of two Senate Republicans to vote against the budget framework that the chamber passed in early April, Giles told Maine Morning Star she was pleased but not confident the senator’s opposition would remain as budget debates continues, nor that her vote would make a difference in the end.

Late last month, the U.S. House narrowly approved the massive tax and spending plan. The legislation now heads to the Senate, where Republican lawmakers are expected to rewrite much of it, now taking into consideration the more detailed budget plan Trump released on Friday. The bill will then have to head back to the House for final approval, with a goal to get it to the president’s desk by the Fourth of July.

As passed by the House, the 1,116-page package combines 11 bills. Among its many components, the current plan would overhaul Medicaid, reducing the program by $625 billion over 10 years under the latest estimate by the Congressional Budget Office.

Collins did not provide specific red lines that would lead her to not support the budget package, but she described Medicaid as critically important for Maine’s health care system and a vital resource for many seniors, low-income families, disabled patients and those who cannot work. She told Maine Morning Star she “cannot support proposals that would create more duress for our hospitals and providers that are already teetering on the edge of insolvency.”

However, Collins is supportive of placing further limits on program eligibility, specifically “work requirements for able-bodied men and women who are capable of working and do not have obligations that preclude them from participating in the workforce,” she said.

As passed by the House, people who are between the ages of 19 and 65 would be required to work, participate in community service, or attend an educational program at least 80 hours a month to be eligible. The language has numerous exceptions, including for pregnant people, parents of dependent children and people who have complex medical conditions, among others.

Under these requirements, 34,000 Mainers would be expected to lose their Medicaid coverage, reducing federal funding by $215 million, according to the progressive Maine Center for Economic Policy.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills warned in a radio address on Friday about these cuts, as well as others that would limit access to the Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplaces.

“If you receive health care through MaineCare or CoverME.gov, which is the Affordable Care Act, I encourage you to contact Members of Congress to share what that coverage means to you,” Mills said. “They need to hear your story.”

Some shared their stories at a protest against Collins organized by the Maine Democratic Party in Bangor on Saturday, which drew almost 200 attendees who demanded the senator block the health care and other program cuts in the budget.

“In 2020, [Collins] told us that her seniority would protect us, that chairing Appropriations would give her the power to defend Maine’s interests,” said Shawn Yardley. “Her party now controls the White House and both chambers of Congress, but the cuts and the cruelty keep coming.”

While Collins emphasized some possible future impacts on MaineCare at the federal level, she said, “the state has not been perfect on this issue.” The senator called out the Maine Legislature for being unable to reach a compromise on its state budget.

“The state is holding up more than $100 million in emergency supplemental funding that would draw down nearly $400 million federal funds,” Collins said.

Maine Senate Republicans held out their support for the supplemental budget plan, and later the two-year budget, because they’d wanted it to include structural reform to Medicaid — notably the work requirements Collins is supportive of adding on the federal level.

Last month, the Maine House failed to secure enough support to get the now already allocated Medicaid funding out sooner. Some Republicans, though not ultimately enough for passage, supported that effort, arguing the state needs to pay its bills owed to providers, but others called it a blank check they wouldn’t sign.

With Maine hospitals already struggling to keep services available, state groups are calling on Collins in particular to reject federal health care cuts as well as cuts to childcare and food assistance in a digital ad campaign launched this week by Family Values @ Work Action, a national network of state and local coalitions aimed at promoting family-friendly workplace policies.

“This package takes food and medicine from the mouths of Maine families to fund tax cuts for the wealthy,” Destie Hohman Sprague, executive director of the Maine Women’s Lobby, said in a statement on Monday.

Among many other components, the federal budget bill proposes cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP, through expanded work requirements and shifting some program costs to state governments. Maine would also lose federal matching funds as a penalty for providing coverage to some immigrant populations.

The budget plan would also raise the debt limit by $4 trillion.

“We have an enormous deficit and debt,” Collins said, “and we do need to evaluate programs.”

As the Senate negotiates what to keep and do away with in the “big, beautiful bill” that represents the heart of Trump’s domestic agenda, how Maine’s senior senator chooses to use her influence, whether in public or not, will be put to the test.

Maine Morning Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lauren McCauley for questions: info@mainemorningstar.com.

Apiyo Charles of Gorham voted for President Joe Biden last presidential election, the first time she was old enough to vote.

Four years later, the 22-year-old cast her vote Tuesday for Republican nominee Donald Trump.

One of her key deciding factors: immigration.

Charles was born in a refugee camp in Uganda. Her family is originally from South Sudan and they came to the United States in 2008. “I’d never liked politics,” Charles said. But as she got older, she started to plug in more and do her own research, she said.

“I understand when Americans are like, ‘You are welcome but you have to stay in line and come through legally,’” Charles said. “If I was in my country and there were other people coming but I see my people not being taken care of, I would feel the exact same way.”

Overall, she ultimately felt her priorities would be better served by Trump, Charles explained at Deering High School in Portland Tuesday afternoon, waiting for a friend to cast a ballot.

The nation agreed, as the former president won a decisive victory over Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, which The Associated Press called early Wednesday when Trump’s win in Wisconsin put him over the 270 electoral vote threshold needed to clinch the presidency.

The comeback validates his appeal to frustrated voters like Charles.

Charles listed off some of her other priority issues: “the tax prices, the grocery prices, all of that.” She is also frustrated with U.S. spending on issues abroad, such as the Russia-Ukraine war. “Most of my Christian beliefs align more with Trump than Harris,” Charles said, explaining that she does not support abortion.

Harris picked up Maine’s 1st Congressional District and is likely to win the statewide vote. But, as predicted, Trump secured an electoral vote from Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, marking the third consecutive election he’s done so. Maine is one of two states that allow for split electoral votes, which did not occur until 2016 when CD2 went for Trump.

Several voters in the 2nd District told Maine Morning Star in the lead up to Election Day that they were voting for Trump in order to, in their view, save America. Much like Charles, immigration and the economy were top of mind. Some had long voted Republican, like Magdalena and Fred Elwell, a mother and son, from Topsham and Auburn, respectively.

“We’re a Republican family,” Magdalena said.

But for people like Charles, their votes transcend party loyalties and speak to exasperation with the status quo.

“The Democrats have been in office for the last four years and I feel like if there’s new policies coming up we should have done something prior to this election,” Charles said, “so part of me feels like this was kind of a ‘save the policies for this election’ and then start new. You had the opportunity the past four years.

“I would have continued to vote Democratic, but I feel like not enough change has been done.”

While the president has overarching authority on some areas, a lot of policy change at the federal level requires the approval of Congress, which has been divided during the current administration. One example of this was a bipartisan immigration deal that Republicans pulled out of after Trump said it would be a political gift to Biden.

However, on Tuesday Republicans took control of the U.S. Senate and are fighting to keep their majority in the U.S. House, which would produce a GOP trifecta with President-elect Trump in the White House. If Democrats manage to flip the House, maintaining a divided Congress, it would mean continued obstacles for achieving leadership’s goals.

Control of the U.S. House was still too early to call by Wednesday morning.

Charles shared some doubts about election integrity, echoing other Republican voters across the state and Trump, who ramped up unsubstantiated claims about noncitizen voting this election cycle. Despite fears, violence did not materialize on Tuesday, although threats of violence, which turned out to be hoaxes, occurred in Maine and disrupted voting in some battleground states.

Maine voter concerns about election security also had roots in the former president’s refusal to accept defeat against Biden in 2020.

When Trump lost the election in 2020, a group of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attack the FBI has classified as domestic terrorism that threatened the peaceful transfer of power, resulted in several deaths and injured approximately 140 police officers. The U.S. House Jan. 6 committee concluded that Trump was the central cause of the attack, but some Maine voters said they didn’t hold Trump accountable and questioned whether election results this year would be credible.

Charles also said Trump’s rhetoric, laden with insults and threats, did not supersede her belief that he would better serve her interests. “I think we have to separate emotions from politics,” Charles said.

This, too, was a view shared by others who cast votes in his favor, some of whom felt Trump had toned down his rhetoric this election cycle, including Erin Larsen of Sanford, who said she doesn’t like some of Trump’s derogatory comments but overall believed he had “cleaned up.”

This is despite researchers finding the opposite. Rather, political scientists and historians warn Trump’s speeches and social media posts have become darker and more violent since his political career began in 2015.

Despite this increasingly divisive and threatening trend in Trump’s speech, Charles, Larsen and other Republican voters in Maine said they still personally want the heat of political rhetoric to be toned down.

“As someone who is a person of color voting for Trump, I feel like sometimes it is difficult because you feel judged or very shameful,” Charles said. “I don’t want it to be like that.”

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