“They want angry rhetoric,” complained defeated Maine Sen. Susan Collins.
Photo illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty/Reuters
Susan Collins lashed out at Republican voters after losing her Maine Senate seat in the Democratic midterm landslide.
In an interview with The New York Times, Collins, 73, complained about voters’ perceptions that she had not done enough to stand up to President Donald Trump, whose growing unpopularity has led many longtime Republican voters to abandon the party.
“I was caught in the Trump tsunami that swept away many incumbent Republican senators who have served their state well for many years and who truly care about our country,” Collins said.
Democrat Troy Jackson is celebrating his victory in Maine’s Senate race after ousting longtime incumbent Susan Collins.
Collins was one of seven Republican senators who broke with their Republican colleagues to vote to convict Trump after he was impeached following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, but said it had little impact on voters Tuesday.
“Everyone is ignoring the fact that I voted to convict him in the second impeachment trial,” Collins said. “What bigger break could there be? It’s never enough. I want results, and they want angry rhetoric.”
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Collins lost the seat she held for three decades to Democrat Troy Jackson, one of the major upsets of Tuesday’s midterms. She was first elected in 1996 and is serving her fifth term.
The campaign was tight and acrimonious, with Jackson telling Collins to “shut up” during the candidates’ debate in October. Jackson sought to tie Collins to Trump’s increasingly unpopular policies, and both candidates launched corruption allegations and personal attacks at each other.
Collins did not give a concession speech after his defeat and announced the result in an email to his supporters after calling Jackson to congratulate him, according to reports.
She has long walked a fine line between maintaining an agenda independent of Trump and not incurring the president’s ire, with the octogenarian having a long history of vendettas against those in his own party who oppose him.
But ultimately, the unpopularity of Trump’s second-term policies was too great for Collins to overcome, with even longtime Republican voters abandoning the party in droves.
Speaking to the Times, Collins recalled a conversation with a longtime supporter who told her she “loved” her but felt she couldn’t vote for her this time.
“She said it was the only way she could send a message to Trump,” Collins said.
The Times reporter who interviews Collins, Carl Hulse, 72, has long provided him with an uncritical platform. He too In his last report, he wrote: “By rejecting Ms. Collins, Maine voters gave up enormous influence over federal spending by placing the woman at the head of the influential committee that controls federal spending. »
In June, he interviewed her and named her as a dedicated senator, while in 2022 he presented her as the heroine of efforts to reform the presidential certification process in the aftermath of January 6.
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