Augusta, Maine – In case you missed it, the Maine Democratic Party held a press call today responding to Susan Collins’ reelection campaign announcement and outlining what’s at stake for Mainers in 2026.

 

Speakers included Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson, Portland City Council member April Fournier, Planned Parenthood Maine Patient Advocate Meggie Shapiro, and End Citizens United President Tiffany Muller. 

 

 

Here are some key moments:

 

Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson:

 

  • When Susan Collins first ran for Senate, when she first announced in 1996, she told all of us Mainers that she would only run for two terms. She has lied to Maine people from the very beginning. Susan Collins has spent the last 30 years betraying Mainers. 

     

  • She stripped away our affordable health care by letting the ACA tax credits expire. There were 50,000 Mainers who relied on those tax credits to afford their health care. There are now 7,000 Mainers who are uninsured because they could not afford to renew their premiums because their premiums had skyrocketed without those credits. 

 

  • This is also Susan Collins' first election where she has to face Maine voters after she stripped away reproductive rights from this country. She betrayed Maine women. She betrayed American women.

 

  • Mainers see through her political charade. And finally, although she tries to paint herself as a moderate, we know that Susan Collins has voted with Donald Trump 94% of the time.

 

  • The Republicans in Washington know that they can count on Susan Collins for her vote when they need her most.

 

  • And she now faces some of the lowest approval ratings of her entire career and in the entire country. New polling shows that she is the second most unpopular U.S. Senator in the country. 

 

  • Mainers see through her political games and her fake shows of concern [...] and in November, we will reject her at the ballot box. 

 

Portland City Council member April Fournier:

 

  • At the same time, she has actively worked against things like the ACA that would help Mainers be able to even access those hospitals and secure those medical services that are so important. 

 

  • [...] If she were really concerned about Mainers, she would recognize that there is a relationship, a direct relationship between the cost of health care and the impact on being able to access that.

 

  • [...] The Affordable Care Act allowed more than 64,000 Mainers to have affordable health care coverage in 2025 [...] when Susan Collins could have shown up for Mainers and really make sure that it mattered that these were protected before that bill passed, she decided to work against it, like she has done for a lot of years. 

 

  • [...] If we want healthy Mainers that don't have to worry about choosing between putting food on the table or paying for their health insurance premium, then Susan Collins has to go because we can't afford any more of her concern. 

 

Planned Parenthood Maine Patient Advocate Meggie Shapiro:

 

  • I feel eternally grateful that I was able to receive the care I needed and when I needed it. However, that feeling of gratitude is accompanied by feelings of frustration, outrage, and extreme disappointment with Maine Senator Susan Collins and her record of voting to appoint anti-abortion judges throughout her entire career. 

 

  • While Senator Collins has expressed concern about the Supreme Court's ruling that paved the way for one in three women to now live in a state where abortion care is severely restricted or banned, she has continued to advocate for and vote to appoint anti-abortion judges to courts across the country. 

 

  • I am really outraged and saddened that Senator Collins, as recently as this month, has voted to give an anti-abortion judge a lifetime appointment.

 

  • The decision about whether and when to end a pregnancy should always be between a patient and their medical care provider, not politicians like Susan Collins and not the anti-abortion judges that she supports.

 

End Citizens United President Tiffany Muller:

 

  • Over and over again, [Collins has] built a record of putting her special interest donors first. She's really mastered this art of pay-to-play politics where donors bankroll politicians and then politicians reward them, even when it's at the expense of their constituents. 

 

  • Susan Collins has built her political power on corporate PAC money and special interest money on a scale that frankly has never been seen in Maine before. She has taken more corporate PAC money than any politician in Maine history. 

 

  • That money doesn't come just because they like Susan Collins so much. It comes with an expectation of access, influence, and policy outcomes. So when you look at her votes, then they start to make a lot more sense. They are really disturbingly consistent.

 

  • Susan Collins cast a pivotal vote to move Donald Trump's big billionaire tax bill forward last year [...] it was built to reward billionaires and the big corporations with a massive tax break, the largest tax break in U.S. history, while leaving working families holding the bill.

 

  • Maine families right now are living with the consequences of that bill, and they will for generations to come, because it was actually the biggest transfer of wealth that we have seen in American history, from lower and middle class Americans to the wealthiest. And right before Collins cast that vote, a super PAC supporting her received a massive $2 million contribution from billionaire private equity executive Stephen Schwarzman. 

 

  • It comes down to this choice between fighting for Mainers and fighting for her powerful donors. And she has repeatedly stood on the side of her donors and the special interests.

 

  • With families struggling and her asking for another term, it is time to take a look at her record. Mainers cannot afford another six years of the same pay-to-play politics. They just can't.

 

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