Maine can boot Susan Collins. This could hurt the state’s pockets for years

Maine could send Senator Susan Collins packing after this year’s midterm elections. This decision could hurt the Pine Tree State’s balance sheet for years to come.

Collins, New England’s only federally elected Republican, is in the fight of her political life against Democratic progressive candidate Graham Platner. Plattner, an oyster farmer and military veteran, has seized on the anger and anti-establishment hostility directed at President Donald Trump to rocket his way to the Democratic nomination — forcing Democratic Governor Janet Mills to abandon her own Senate campaign within a matter of months. His yard signs reflect the state’s backward areas and neighborhoods, and he leads in nearly every head-to-head poll against Collins.

This race, like most midterm contests, is taking the form of a referendum on the president, who remains underwater nationally in almost every election. And Collins, who has repeatedly beaten the odds in spectacular fashion for the GOP even as New England swung completely blue, is clearly running against the tide as voters consider whether to allow Trump a Senate majority for his final two years in the White House.

Control of the Senate is objectively important. Democrats winning the Senate would likely prevent Trump from appointing a fourth and possibly a fifth justice to the Supreme Court. This would also open the door to a bicameral investigation of the President if Democrats also prevail in the House. Democrats’ chances of gaining control of the Senate are slim. A May 13 report from BCA Research predicted Republicans would retain a slim majority in the chamber.

But Maine voters face a special dilemma when they go to the polls to decide Collins’ fate: Do they really want to clip the wings of their golden goose to loosen Trump’s grip on Washington?

Collins, 73, who is running for a sixth term, is at the height of her power in the Senate – a body where seniority reigns supreme over all else. Mainer, a liberal, chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, a highly coveted post that makes her the gatekeeper of the federal purse and gives her immense influence over the administration, the ability to send billions of dollars home.

“This has been a classic political question for years,” said Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, who represents the state’s southern 1st Congressional District. He said it would be “hard to predict” whether voters would choose the certainty of seniority or “today’s politics”.

In a phone interview with CNBC, Collins made the case for her re-election by arguing that she is willing to deliver more for Maine where others cannot. And when it came to explaining what would happen to the state if she fell, she left no stone unturned.

“Maine will lose a lot,” Collins said. “Even if by some miracle Graham Platner could be appointed as a new member of the Appropriations Committee, it would take him many years to accumulate the seniority, experience, knowledge, and power necessary to chair a subcommittee.”

“Look how long it took me to become chairman of the entire committee,” he said.

Collins, who was first elected in 1997, took until 2025 to assume appropriations authority. Before him, the last senator from Maine to hold this post was Frederick Hale, who reached this position in 1932. Hale, a Republican, served in the chamber for 24 years.

There is little resemblance between Collins and Hale, who was once Hale. Allegedly Beaten a newspaper editor with a whip for publishing an inflammatory article about his mother. She is a staunch liberal Republican and the first GOP woman to chair the committee. But he has done a job that is known to pay dividends in Washington.

In the years after 2021, when congressionally directed spending — or earmarked amounts — are restored, Collins’ office says it has generated about $1.5 billion for Maine. Of this, approximately $429 million was appropriated for the 2026 fiscal year alone. While some MPs quietly seek earmarks, Collins is loud and proud about hers.

“It’s been 92 years since a Maine senator has been chair of the Appropriations Committee, and so I realized I had a once in a century opportunity to make real change for the state of Maine as well as our country,” Collins said. “I have been able to secure nearly $1.5 billion in Congressionally directed spending projects for more than 650 projects in all 16 counties throughout the state.”

Collins talked about rehabilitating fire stations that are “badly outdated and at times not healthy environments for firefighters.” They also received $9.6 million for construction of an intersection in the town of Cumberland, nearly $5 million for an expansion of a rural health facility in Calais, and $6 million for wastewater treatment improvements in Biddeford.

Plattner’s campaign does not dispute that Collins has brought home the bacon. But in a statement from his campaign, he argued that the fund hasn’t made a big difference for everyday Mainers. The Plattner campaign, which did not make him available for an interview, also pointed to campaign donations Collins has taken over the years.

“The funding that Senator Collins has brought to projects in Maine is a pittance compared to the money sent overseas to fund immoral wars and the money lining the pockets of her billionaire donors,” a campaign spokesperson said in a statement. “She takes money from Big Pharma while rural hospitals close. She takes money from Lockheed Martin and votes for another endless war. She votes against Congress’s stock trading ban while profiting from stock trading.”

The spokesperson said, “No amount of spin will change the fact that after 30 years in Washington, Suzanne Collins has gotten richer while life has gotten worse for working Mainers — and Mainers feel it.”

Collins has also had her share of controversial votes over the years. He recently voted for the SAVE Act, a bill that would make it harder for people to vote in US elections. He also voted for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who supported overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion rights case.

Mark Brewer, chair of the political science department at the University of Maine, said the money Collins brings matters.

“It’s so big in Maine, there’s no way to avoid it,” Brewer said in an interview. “This is going to be a weapon that Collins is going to use throughout this campaign. And there’s really no good reaction to it.”

“She covers the state, and no matter what your involvement is, those things matter and everyone knows it matters,” he said.

Hanging over Collins’ re-election, however, is Trump’s omnipresence. Voters are turning away from a second Trump administration, overwhelmingly electing Democrats in the 2025 off-year elections and repeatedly offering low approval numbers in public polls.

For Democrats running in every state, including Maine, fighting Trump is the same in any campaign. And Collins is – generally – a reliable Republican vote.

Collins has provoked Trump’s anger several times by voting against his own party. And she is known for questioning the orthodoxy of the party before ultimately voting on party lines. He did not vote for the President’s signature 2025 tax and spending policy measure known as the One Big Beautiful Bill. He voted to impeach Trump after the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. More recently, he has voted with Democrats against Trump’s war with Iran, a change after weeks of voting for war.

“Republicans, when in doubt, vote the exact opposite of Senator Susan Collins. Generally speaking, you can’t go wrong,” Trump said at his forum last July. true social. “Thank you for bringing attention to this matter and making America great again!”

In the interview, Collins said she views her relationship with the Trump White House the same way she views previous administrations.

“I’ve worked with five presidents and I don’t agree with any of the five on every issue and it’s no different with this president,” Collins said. “I have a record of accomplishments, no matter who is in the White House, and I always strive to develop working relationships with Cabinet members.”

Collins also said most voters don’t see another important part of her job: forcing members of the Trump administration to reverse their decisions when they pull funding for a major project or do something else that hurts the state. One such example was “Operation Catch of the Day”, a short-lived immigration crackdown in Maine that was quickly abandoned amid backlash.

“The escalated operation stopped, and it appears it stopped because Collins made the call,” Brewer said.

Because she is a vulnerable Republican in an election year, the White House has accommodated Collins at a time when they have been unwilling to accommodate other blue or purple states, despite their difficult relations with the president.

Collins warned that if he was voted out, that influence would be lost not only in Maine, but the entire New England region.

“In the current delegation, I’m the only member who has the ability to do that,” Collins said.

He pointed to a less headline-grabbing example in which the Trump administration cut funding for Maine Sea Grant, a research and business support program run by the University of Maine for the state’s famed fishery. The program is run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is under the Department of Commerce and Secretary Howard Lutnick.

“I’m driving home from the annual fishermen’s forum … I got a message that the administration has ended the Sea Grant program for the state of Maine,” Collins said. “So I immediately got on the phone with the Secretary of Commerce, Secretary Lutnick, and I explained to him how incredibly important this program is to our fishing industry, our lobstermen and women, and the researchers at the University of Maine, and our coastal communities.”

“In short, we have restored it,” he said.

However, it remains to be seen whether any of this is enough to help Collins resist the tide. Senators have run in elections in the past amid the changing political tides of their states, but typically their luck eventually runs out — as exemplified by the 2024 ouster of former Democratic Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

Brewer said there’s no doubt that Maine is turning blue, but it’s still enough of a purple state that Collins could pull out a win.

He said, “A classic kind of New England-style, Rockefeller-type Republican can still win here, and Collins demonstrates that cycle after cycle.” “Now, this isn’t going to go on forever. But I don’t know if the clock will strike midnight in 2026.”