President Donald Trump has periodically criticized U.S. Sen. Susan Collins over the years, but Maine Republicans’ reactions to the latest one shows how she remains inoculated to his jabs.
Members of the president’s party at all levels of politics remain behind Collins as she seeks a sixth term next year that would make her Maine’s longest-serving senator in history. Democrats are gearing up for another massive campaign against her, but they have no clear candidate with Gov. Janet Mills mulling a race and holding up other potential candidates.
Trump’s Thursday night Truth Social post telling Republicans to “vote the exact opposite” of Collins puts party members in Maine in a somewhat awkward position. They acknowledge their support for the president while also defending the centrist senator who has faced bad approval ratings in recent months but has an unmatched record of winning in her Democratic-leaning state.
“I’m a strong Trump supporter, and I’m also a strong Collins supporter,” radio host Ray Richardson said, adding that Republicans “respect her, even when they disagree with her.”
Trump’s jab came after Collins voted Tuesday against confirming Trump’s personal lawyer Emil Bove — whom whistleblowers had accused of flouting laws as a Justice Department official — to serve as a federal judge and after Collins opposed Trump’s megabill and his rescissions package earlier in July.
But Republican senators still had enough votes in each instance to confirm Bove and approve Trump’s priority bills, as they also did this year with two other controversial Trump nominees whom Collins opposed — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and FBI Director Kash Patel.
This year, Collins has remained in her normal position as the Senate Republican closest to the political center, according to VoteView. Collins has voted with Trump nearly 96 percent of the time this Congress, according to a CQ VoteWatch analysis. That is in part due to party leaders mostly bringing up measures that the president agrees with.
On Wednesday, Collins voted with Republicans to confirm Joe Kent as the nation’s top counterterrorism official. Kent has pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and the FBI was involved in planning the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Collins said in a statement that she casts “each vote based on what is right for Maine and America.”
“Sometimes that means I agree with the president and sometimes I disagree,” Collins said.
Democrats have argued the events of the last few months show Collins is not swaying her colleagues from her perch as Senate Appropriations Committee nor is she as moderate as she portrays herself. But Trump’s criticism of Collins, which came after he blasted her in April for opposing Canada tariffs, is not doing much to change the minds of Maine Republicans.
Maine House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, said “no one can question that she puts more thought and homework into every vote she takes, and [she] always does what she believes is best for the state of Maine.”
Democrats had high hopes when former Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon ran a well-funded campaign against Collins in 2020. Trump had also used a social media post not long before the 2020 election to tear into Collins for opposing his ultimately successful effort to put Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court, saying the senator was “not worth the work.”
Neither the president’s rhetoric nor polling showing Collins behind Gideon in the runup to the election prevented Collins from beating Gideon comfortably that year. Various ties between Collins and Trump allies continue even amid the president’s critiques. For example, a super PAC supporting her 2026 reelection bid employs Trump’s pollster.
Though she ultimately opposed Trump’s megabill of tax breaks and spending cuts, Collins voted to advance it to floor votes, a move that U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, R-North Dakota, mentioned in describing her as a “team player.”
That support from the upper echelon of the party to the Maine grassroots shows how Trump’s occasional jabs may not matter much in the end. Richardson, the radio host, said he does not “know of anybody in the state of Maine who can defeat her.”
Other Republicans had few words on Trump’s Truth Social post. Rep. Shelley Rudnicki, R-Fairfield, said Friday she had not even heard about the post so could not comment. As for whether Trump’s criticism of Collins is valid or will matter to Maine voters, state Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart, R-Presque Isle, kept his answer brief.
“No,” he said.