Will Vote for Kavanaugh Cost Susan Collins Her Senate Seat?
Cook Political Report has moved Collins’ 2020 Senate race from “leans Republican” to “toss up”
Sen. Susan Collins (R) is seeking reelection in 2020, but there are some growing signs that it will not be an easy bid for the centrist Maine lawmaker. Collins’ waffling during the confirmation hearings of Justice Brett Kavanaugh won her few (if any) friends or admirers on either the right or the left.
And now the Cook Political Report has moved Collins’ 2020 Senate race from “leans Republican” to “toss up.”
Oh my. Cook Political Report just changed @SenatorCollins reelection race to a toss-up. It had been leaning Republican. #mepolitics
— Steve Collins (@SteveCollinsSJ) August 16, 2019
The Cook Political Report shifted its forecast of the Maine Senate election from “lean Republican” to “toss-up” on Friday, signaling a tight reelection race for Sen. Susan Collins (R).
Collins won her last reelection bid in 2014 by more than 30 points but is expected to face a much tighter race this time around, with the leader of the state’s House of Representatives, Sara Gideon (D), announcing she would challenge the four-term senator.
A press release Friday from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) claimed that the incumbent senator’s support had cratered in the state following her confirmation vote for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh last year, a controversial vote that Democrats argue pushed her outside the label of “moderate.”
“This is the latest in a string of bad news for the vulnerable incumbent, who has continued to lose support among Mainers and seen her net approval drop by a ‘stunning’ amount since President Trump took office,” the DSCC said in a press release, quoting a Morning Consult analysis.
You can view the Cook Political Report‘s 2020 Senate race ratings here.
Some of that bad news was reported in July when FiveThirtyEight noted that “Mitch McConnell Is The Only Senator More Unpopular Than Susan Collins” and Bloomberg noted, based on the same polling, that Collins’ approval was underwater in her home state.
Collins stated at the time that she believed that her record of bipartisanship will help her win reelection.
From Bloomberg:
“The divisiveness of our country and the unceasing attacks by dark money groups in Maine have clearly had an impact,” Collins said in an interview at the Capitol. “But I believe that once Mainers really focus on the race and we remind them of my being the No. 1 most bipartisan member of the Senate, and all the accomplishments that I can point to that have directly benefited the state, I’ll be fine.”
The Donald Trump era has been hard on Collins. Her votes for the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and against the president’s effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act have her drawing fire from both parties.
And that’s just the problem Collins seems to be facing. She’s losing support for the very moderate, bipartisan views that have helped her remain in the Senate since 1997.
Maine isn’t deep red, it’s (mostly) blue. So Collins’ historic willingness to work across the aisle played well there. However, she may have overplayed that card during the Kavanaugh hearings.
We covered the Kavanaugh confirmation extensively, and as we noted at the time, Collins was a major (and unwelcome to many) GOP player in the entire process.
- Kavanaugh Confirmation Vote POSTPONED, New Hearing on Monday
- Weak Republicans deprived us of a victory, even if Kavanaugh eventually is confirmed
- Sen. Susan Collins is a YES on Kavanaugh
- Activists Threatening and Trying to Bribe Senator Collins and Staff Over Kavanaugh Vote
Gideon (D) posted her hope to challenge Collins in 2020 on Twitter in June, and the responses at the time are quite telling.
Reminder that @SenSusanCollins was just named the most bipartisan member of the entire Senate AGAIN and is the second most bipartisan in the history of the United States. The arguments suggesting otherwise are nonsense. #MEpolitics https://t.co/EAbxYloayn
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) June 24, 2019
Yes Flip Flop Suzie got to GO!
— KundaNshilima (@KundaBakes) June 24, 2019
Sara Gideon, you’re great. Susan Collins has approved not only Kavanaugh but every right-wing judge candidate Trump nominated for lifetime appointment to the federal bench and you are calling her on it. I don’t live in Maine but my checkbook works there.
— Jane Shay Wald (@janefourmillion) June 26, 2019
https://twitter.com/Kidskatsandogs/status/1143238854247440386
I'm shocked that @SenSusanCollins has the nerve to even run again. After the Kavanaugh slight, she should be running with her tail between her legs. How dare she run!!!
— Mare Jackson #BernieSanders2020 (@kuzzinmare) June 24, 2019
This is not an issue that is going away for Collins.
Susan Collins sold out women when she voted for Kavanaugh. @SaraGideonME–who is gaining on her to be the next Senator of Maine–came back in 2018 and shepherded not one, but two pro-choice bills through the Maine state legislature. Give to Sara here: https://t.co/xxxg7xfgEi
— Ilyse Hogue (@ilyseh) August 16, 2019
https://twitter.com/hampgal7/status/1162652732874010624
How all this translates into votes is as yet unclear. As the Hill reports, “Little polling exists of the 2020 Maine Senate race so far, but a Gravis poll taken in June indicated that Collins had a 14-point lead over Gideon.” A double-digit lead is nothing to sneeze at.
Something, however, prompted Cook to change her Senate race rating, and it’s not a stretch to think it may be at least somewhat related to her waffling over Kavanaugh.
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It should.
Who’s her GOP competition so we can donate to them?
“Dirigo” all contributions to her GOP competition.
Dirigo = I direct or I guide (State of Maine motto).
Does Susan have any republican competition?
What makes you think she has any? And if she did, how could such a person win in Maine, when even Collins is finding it difficult?
Collins took 68.5% of the vote in 2014, 61.3% in 2008, 58.4% in 2002, with the only close election being her initial election in 1996- 49.18%. Believing in polls this early is foolish.
Being elected the first time to a statewide seat in Maine is pretty much a guarantee of lifetime employment. That’s why when George Mitchell unexpectedly retired and Maine’s two congresscritters ran against each other for his senate seat, native Mainer’s moved back to Maine to compete for the two open congressional seats. You’re not going to be elected in Maine. If you move there, even as a child, you’ll always be an outsider, never fully accepted.
Considering she is a GOPe hack, she has no base. Of course she’s going to get nailed.
If the GOP was run by people trustworthy of their jobs, Collins would have great backing in Maine.
Maine is a blue state, and I suspect that Collins is about as right-leaning as we’d get from that state. Personally, I would rather have her than a Democrat who will vote 100% with the socialist-commies, but that’s just me.
Keep in mind that the one thing holding Pelosi back right now is her House contingent from districts just like Collins’. There are Dems who are in red states barely hanging on, just like Collins in her blue state.
If we learned nothing from the Tea Party rise, let’s learn that we can’t install “our” choice in some regions/states/districts. We can get the best we can get there, but they’ll disappoint in some votes. What they won’t do is disappoint in ALL votes. Unlike a Dem, they will vote Republican at least some of the time.
What do you want, Fine? All Dems everywhere we can otherwise only get a RINO? Then what? ALL of those votes always go to Dems. That is good how? That helps Trump or our country how?
I’d take Collins over the radical leftists Justice Democrats sponsored Sweet.
They are the ones who gave us “The Squad”. They must be stopped!
Here are the JD candidates:
https://ballotpedia.org/Justice_Democrats
What went wrong in Maine?
Historically they were always such a conservative state.
Northern New England used to be pretty solidly red …. I’d like to know what happened myself. Too many New Yorkers moving in?
From what I know, northern Maine is conservative (like northern NY). But the “Massholes” who’ve moved in — particularly Portland and Bangor with its government jobs — swing the state.
Similar to what happened to Vermont (once home to Calvin Coolidge). California followed a similar trajectory, but did so on the deliberately imported wave of illegal aliens — a model the Progressives are replicating in other states.
Alas, ten years ago I moved to FL to escape New England, and yet Florida is now “purple.” The Progressives are like a metastasizing cancer — they instinctively move throughout the body politic and, once reaching critical mass, ruin the new places too.
remember migration patterns, how about Bostonians moving away from Mass, they infect the North East like californias do the west, and texas
we’ve always been a blue and red with portland/brunswick and lately augusta (southern ) mostly progressive while area wise the top leaned conservative.
problem is the few cities rule us all.
which is why they want to change EC as maine is one of 2 states that proportions its EC votes.
I agree. But the bigger point is that the GOP is part of the swamp, and to them, it is really more about keeping their perks and filling their pockets than it is about defending our Constitution.
Collins got elected, meaning she could get re-elected. What has the GOP done for Collins? What has the GOP done for anyone but the GOP?
Give a few million to the people doing the blog work on our side, and you’ll see a few brilliant tv commercials promoting Collins and hammering the leftist swine who might oppose her. Do that, and we’d get her re-elected, and get her to be more loyal to the right.
The Cook Political Reports changes its rating to “Tossup” on the same day the DSCC claims Collins’ support has “cratered”. With no polling data to back up either claim.
They may be right. But I never trusted Cook, and this feels like an effort to create a bandwagon effect (and raise gobs more cash for the Democrat).
Yeah. Twitter opinion is the new astroturf. Using polling to drive opinion? Unpossible!
Pushing public opinion – maybe. But I think fundraising is the real motive here. A Democrat in a tossup race with a GOP incumbent in a bluish state will find it easier to raise cash compared to a Democrat who is behind by double digits.
The Cook Political Report released a click bait-y announcement changing a race where a GOP incumbent is suddenly in a tossup. I don’t put much faith in polls, but to Cook and the rest of the MSM/DNC axis they are Holy Scripture (unless they put Democrats in a bad light, in which case it is Russian Hacking). Cook failing to cite poll data is like campus feminists talking about higher education without one mentioning “rape culture”. How likely is that?
At any rate, it will be interesting to see the Democrat Gideon’s fundraising numbers over the next few weeks. Something tells me Cook just gave her a big financial boost.
The only, and I mean ONLY plus with Collins is she sometimes leans Republican. Should the Republicans gain some additional Senate seats, losing Collins would only strengthen the Republicans.
As to the various wymyn posting against Collins, sorry, but this far out a number of SJW types posting against her means little to nothing.
To that effect, so are polls at this time. Far too early to hold meaning other than to create the hysteria over the Senate. Given how the leftists have been behaving in the House, I would hope that people who have an ounce of brains would join the walk away campaign and keep the National Socialists out of power.
I don’t know about Mainiacs, but I don’t vote for my Congressmen to go to DC and compromise with Democrats.
Ya, she might panic and abandon her base to chase after phantom Dem votes. This would be a very bad play.
“…from “lean Republican” to “toss-up”…”
I might snark, “What difference would it make?”, but for Kavanaugh.
However, I grow weary of the thin GOP gruel consisting of blind squirrels and stopped clocks.
I’m not sure how many of those raving moonbats that are claiming to ‘never vote for her’ voted for her in 2014. Not many, I would guess. These are empty threats.
Offloading Collins would be a welcome collateral benefit.
Here’s hoping that Kavanaugh turns out to be a wee bit more of the conservative persuasion than Collins ever was.
Polls… please
The time to straddle has passed. The time to choose has begun.
Run a Trumpublican for her seat.
And how could such a person win?
They said the same thing about Trump.
The GOPe SOP of being a little less left than the other guy leads to elections where there’s a choice of candidates, but not really of platforms. Voter apathy is the inevitable and perfectly understandable reaction to such wishy-washiness.
Offer a genuine choice of platforms and the voters will start to respond.
The polls now have Collins losing, but also have hillary clinton winning again.
She’s another example that voters see as “if it walks like a democrat and it talks like a democrat, it’s a democrat”. It won’t be the Kavanaugh crazies voting against her, it will be the republican base voting ‘present’ if they vote at all.
If the Republican base has any brains, they’ll make her senator-for-life, or at least one more term. Without her, Kavanaugh’s nomination might not have passed.
she is another example of a repub who has killed the bench in her state. no one she has mentored. McCain redux
According to this posting, Collins won by 30% last time. I don’t see how you can lose a lead like that.
Any voter with 2 brain cells could see that Kavanaugh was set up.
But as for Collins herself, she’s got a speech impediment, she’s a soft-touch female, and I don’t have a single use for her, other than as one vote for the GOP side.
That said, Congress wants America to decline, or it wouldn’t be. Collins is part of that, the wicked bi***. I want to see a pro-American warrior take her on.
I don’t know the population of Maine, but SURELY there’s one pro-American warrior there that can take her on in the primary.
Dear God, where are our warriors?
These days we don’t have political warriors so much as we have political condottieri.
You want a Dem to win to punish Collins for saving Kavanaugh’s seat on SCOTUS.
And you talk all patriotic-like and right-wing to pretend otherwise.
Preposterous!
The census department says there are 1.3 million Mainers. Let’s say 2/3 are adults.
That means 858k adults.
Of that many, probably 35% are GOP, or 300,000.
You mean to tell me that out of 300,000 GOPers in Maine, NONE of them are die-hard pro-Americans that can take her on? NONE?
In 1775, we had, what? 2 million people in the colonies, and yet we came up with many geniuses. If we’re in that dire of straits now, just fold now and be done with it. Let the commies take over, because they have a ton more than we do, willing to step forward.
From the article: “Something, however, prompted Cook to change her Senate race rating, and it’s not a stretch to think it may be at least somewhat related to her waffling over Kavanaugh.”
WAFFLING?
That was a very big PRINCIPLED vote by Susan Collins. All the Senate women were being pressured to join the crazy mob “believing women” even though Blasey Ford was an obvious liar. I used to respect Amy Klobuchar and thought she was above falling into line on that. I was wrong about her. And I am glad to see her presidential campaign looks like a failure already.
Susan Collins is the one who stopped the madness about Kavanaugh, knowing she was putting her career at risk. I don’t agree with her on everything, but when it got really abusive and against American principles, she stood on those principles when it was hard to do so.
If Mainers have any integrity, she should win reelection with 80% of the vote. The Kavanaugh vote, which Gideon does not mention, should help her. We’ll see about Mainers now.
“However, she may have overplayed that card during the Kavanaugh hearings.”
She should take that statement she made explaining her vote, and use it for campaign commercials. The woman is serious, intelligent, thorough, well mannered, and has backbone made of spun steel.
RINO Susan Collins should lose her Senate for allowing the Kavanaugh freak show to happen in the first place.