Politics
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LEWISTON, Maine — During a diner stop with U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, former U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said Wednesday that President Donald Trump “owns this economy” in a nod to the headwinds facing Maine’s five-term incumbent.
Collins, a Republican in a close race with Democrat Troy Jackson, brought Manchin to Simones’ Hot Dog Stand to argue she is no rubber stamp for the unpopular president. Manchin is a former Democrat who became an independent before leaving the Senate in 2025.
When a reporter asked whether she blames Trump for the state of the economy, Collins mentioned former President Joe Biden and pivoted to the nearly $37 million in heating aid she pressed the administration to release this month. She handed the question to Manchin, who said Democrats “paid the price” for Biden’s policies and that Collins would serve as a check.
“They own this economy,” Manchin said of the Trump administration. “This is their economy, and they have to face up to that.”
The exchange showed how Collins has run against Trump’s policies in a Democratic-leaning state without running expressly against him, confining her critiques to specific issues. Jackson, who holds a narrow lead in most public polls less than two weeks before Election Day, argues her breaks aren’t meaningfully checking the president.
Collins and Manchin arrived on her campaign bus and walked into Simones’, a longtime stop for Maine candidates, trailed by dozens of reporters. They sat at a table in a back room with a group of local Republican officials and talked about energy and the economy.
After the roundtable, reporters were moved outside for a news conference. Democratic protesters who had set up well before the event, carrying signs depicting Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, traded shouts with Collins staffers and supporters.
Asked whether Trump should reverse his decision to buy Russian diesel despite a sanctions law passed last month, Collins said yes. She said the deal won’t increase U.S. supply “in any measurable way” but will give Russia more money “to attack Ukraine.” She was one of six senators, four of them Republicans, who called on Trump this month to reverse course.
Last month, she called Trump’s cancellation of nearly $1 billion in spending illegal while aiming her criticism at the White House budget office. In August, she voted against Todd Blanche for attorney general, saying the Justice Department had “become increasingly political.” On tariffs, she has said “Canada is not China” while lobbying for item-by-item exemptions for pulp, concrete and road salt.
Manchin has crossed party lines for Collins before. In 2019, while still a Democratic senator, he endorsed her reelection and said he would “go up and campaign for Susan Collins,” but he did not. National Democrats were targeting her that cycle over her vote for Kavanaugh, a vote Manchin also cast in 2018.
In 2022, the two led the bipartisan overhaul of the Electoral Count Act, the law that Trump and his allies tried to exploit after the 2020 election. On Wednesday, Collins named it among the laws they passed together. Manchin also criticized Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, who has led the last two campaigns against Collins.
“I told him he was crazy in 2020 from working against her so hard, and he’s crazy now to work against her,” Manchin said.