For the last 584 days, Senator Susan Collins has been refusing to answer a simple question: does she support Donald Trump’s reelection? A new analysis from HuffPost has revealed that “the explanations she’s offered for deflecting feel shaky” and her reasoning “doesn’t add up.”

 

Yesterday, CNN caught up with Collins to ask her about her inconsistencies and her response was revealing. Collins pointed to her “difficult race” as the reason she’s unable to talk about her support for the president, confirming that her unwillingness to tell Mainers the truth is entirely a political calculation.

 

Collins told The New York Times earlier this month that she doesn’t campaign against her Senate colleagues, but she was more than happy to campaign against her fellow Senators on the Democratic presidential ticket in 2000, 2004 and 2008. Then last week, Collins deployed another false dodge to avoid saying whether she supports Trump, this time claiming she won’t get involved because she has her own race to worry about, despite the fact that she previously served as a campaign co-chairwoman for John McCain when she was running for reelection in 2008.

 

HuffPost: Susan Collins Is Desperate To Avoid Saying Whether She Backs Trump’s Reelection

 

By Hayley Miller

July 21, 2020

 

Key Points:

 

  • Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) seems awfully desperate to avoid saying whether she’ll vote for President Donald Trump in November.

 

  • But Collins’ reasoning for avoiding questions about whether she backs the president’s push for four more years in the White House doesn’t add up.

 

  • She attempted to explain her silence in an interview with The New York Times earlier this month, stating she doesn’t campaign against her Senate colleagues. (Before serving as President Barack Obama’s vice president, Biden represented Delaware as a senator for more than three decades.)

 

  • She told the Times she knows Biden “very well” and that campaigning against him would essentially violate her own rule. And yet, she campaigned against fellow senators in their quest for the presidency in 2000, 2004 and 2008.

 

  • Collins was one of the first senators to endorse George W. Bush in 2000, going against the Democratic ticket of former Vice President Al Gore and then-Sen. Joe Lieberman. She backed Bush again four years later as he fought off Democratic challenges from two of her Senate colleagues: John Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina.

 

  • In 2008, Collins co-chaired John McCain’s presidential campaign in Maine against Obama and Biden, both of whom were Democratic senators at the time. She defended the move later that year, saying it’s “typical for the leading officeholders to chair the campaign of whichever member of your party is running for president.”

 

  • But her role in McCain’s campaign undermines a claim she made last week in which she stated that she doesn’t involve herself in presidential politics when when she’s up for reelection.

 

  • “I am concentrating on my own campaign,” Collins told reporters Wednesday when asked once again whether she supports Trump’s reelection campaign.

 

  • Days later, Biden endorsed her Democratic challenger, Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon, and called on voters in the state to help him “restore the soul of America” by ending Trump’s presidency. Gideon said in early March that she voted for Biden in the state’s Democratic presidential primary.

 

  • In March, Collins refused to say whether she voted for Trump in Maine’s Republican primary, telling a local TV station that she doesn’t want to “get involved in presidential politics.” Trump was the only candidate listed on that ballot, along with the option to write in another name.

 

  • Her refusal to weigh in on the race marked a clear contrast from her position in 2016, when she wrote an op-ed denouncing then-Republican nominee Trump and his “unsuitability for office” three months before the election.

 

  • Pressed on Wednesday to explain her decision to speak out against Trump then but remain silent this time around, Collins said she wasn’t running for reelection in 2016. “I didn’t have my own race to worry about at that point,” she added.

 

  • Though Collins has positioned herself as a self-described “pro-choice” moderate, her voting record suggests otherwise. Her critical support for Trump’s tax bill, Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court appointment, and acquitting the president during his impeachment trial have mobilized Democratic and independent voters in Maine against her. 

 

  • A spokesperson for Collins’ campaign did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

 

  • Trump appeared to endorse Collins in December, tweeting that he agrees “100%” with Sen. Lindsey Graham’s assessment that her reelection is crucial for maintaining a Republican majority in the Senate.

 

  • When asked Wednesday if being tethered to Trump would cost her in November, Collins danced around the question. “You know, in parts of this state, President Trump is very popular,” she said. “In parts of this state, he’s very unpopular. But I am running my own race.”

 

CNN: Susan Collins withholds support from Trump despite endorsing previous GOP presidential nominees

 

By Manu Raju, Alex Rogers, and Ali Zaslav

July 21, 2020

 

Key Points: 

 

  • Sen. Susan Collins declined last week to back President Donald Trump for reelection, saying she would focus on her own race while suggesting that she only picked sides in 2016 because she was not on the ballot.

 

  • "I was not up for reelection," the Maine Republican told reporters, referring to the 2016 race, when she publicly voiced her opposition to Trump's presidential campaign. "I didn't have my own race to worry about at that point."

 

  • But a dozen years ago, as she was running for reelection, Collins endorsed Republican Sen. John McCain over then-Sen. Barack Obama. She served as a co-chairwoman for the McCain campaign in Maine and said she would be "glad" to have her friend campaign for her. At a debate in her 2008 Senate race, she argued that it was "typical for the leading officeholders to chair the campaign of whichever member of your party is running for President."

 

  • Asked Tuesday to explain the discrepancy between her position then and her refusal to say if she'll endorse Trump now, Collins noted her "difficult race" against state House Speaker Sara Gideon and that she and the late senator had a close relationship.

 

  • "As I said, I have a difficult race," Collins told CNN. "And I am concentrating my efforts on that race." "In addition, I have known John McCain since the 1970s, when I worked for Bill Cohen," she said, referring to when she was an aide to the former Maine senator and McCain served as the Navy liaison to the Senate. "We were very close friends," Collins added of her and McCain.

 

  • The contrast reveals the awkward spot Trump has left the senior Maine senator as she battles through one of the toughest elections of her 24-year Senate career. Serving in a Democratic-leaning state with many Trump supporters, Collins is seeking to avoid offending the GOP base while also appealing to swing voters put off by the President. In March, she refused to say how she voted in the Maine GOP presidential primary.

 

  • Speaking to reporters last week, Collins noted how Trump divides the state, saying that "in parts of the state President Trump is very popular, in parts of the state he's very unpopular." "But I am running my own race," she said. "I've always run my own race."

 

  • The Collins campaign declined to comment.

 

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