Susan Collins is desperately concerned

The mask is slipping as the Maine senator reveals her fears—and how far she’ll go to cling to power.

Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine has always played the game of posing as a “moderate,” while being a reliable vote for Senate Republican leadership and Donald Trump when they’ve needed her.

This has required her to often masquerade, saying one thing while doing another. But after her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in 2018—after insisting his assurances about precedent convinced her he would not overturn Roe v. Wade—and her refusal even now to say she regrets the vote, more Maine voters started to see through her. The mask began slipping.

Now she is more embattled in her current bid for reelection than ever before, with poor approval numbers and competitive polls against Democrat Troy Jackson, after Graham Platner—who she had expected to face—saw his candidacy collapse amid multiple controversies.

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In a series of interviews this week, Collins has shown just how fearful she is, saying things that betray a ruthlessness rather than telegraphing that she’s the measured and level-headed one, as she has so often tried to do. In a Politico interview, when asked whether facts about Jackson’s personal life are relevant in this campaign, Collins responded:

Well, I’m not going to bring up the fact that the mother of his two children is his second cousin. I don’t know whether people know that or not.

This was so stunningly low—again, the mask slipping—that even Politico reporter Jonathan Martin could only respond, “I think you just mentioned it.”

This is also old news that’s come up in the past during campaigns regarding Jackson’s longtime partner, and it’s 2026—who cares? Martin himself didn’t need to go there and give Collins the opportunity—but we don’t expect any more of Politico. However, it was jarring to see Collins, who, again, tries to present herself as the cool-headed nice lady, grab for it in what can only be described as desperation. MAGA influencers and Fox were all over it, praising her on social media for going low with the nasty barb—a great owning-the-libs moment.

The media still treats Laura Loomer like a sideshow. She isn’t.

But those are not the voters Collins needs to persuade in Maine. (And if she wants to talk about significant others, there’s a lot to examine regarding her longtime lobbyist husband, whose work and business relationships have raised questions about potential conflicts involving her Senate career—an area that hasn’t gotten nearly as much scrutiny.)

There was something odd, too, about doing the interview at a lobster shack on the coast of Maine while she clumsily slurped up clam chowder. Food is always awkward during interviews, and in this case it just seemed like a metaphor for her lack of finesse. Collins has disclosed that she has essential tremor, a neurological condition that can cause involuntary shaking. She says it does not affect her cognitive abilities or her ability to do her job. Still, imagine what Republicans would do to an opposing candidate who appeared physically unsteady on camera, whether for health reasons or not.

In another exchange, Collins was asked about Liz Cheney, who stood up to Donald Trump, as Martin compared Cheney to Lindsey Graham, who became completely subservient to Trump, supposedly thinking that was the way to handle him. Collins was asked which road she thought was best in dealing with Trump. She claimed she was neither of them. It’s true that she voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment (not the first, in which she voted to acquit) and has criticized him at times and voted with Democrats, unlike Graham. But she has also been there when Trump and the GOP needed her, voting with them on many consequential issues.

But it was Collins’s comments about Cheney that were most odious. Responding to Cheney “standing on principle,” Collins said, “What influence does she have today? Really, none. Liz Cheney, it’s not just that she lost her seat, it’s that she has no impact, in my view.”

This was cold and disrespectful toward a politician whom many independents and even many Democrats have lauded for her courage—again, voters Collins needs in a state that Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris all won statewide in the last three presidential elections. More revealingly, it seemed to expose Collins’s own political calculus: What good is standing on principle, she appeared to be asking, if you lose power?

Who’d have thought Pence would treat a trans woman better than Trump?

And, as I noted, it’s not as if Collins, by retaining her power, has always been able—or willing—to push back against Trump on the things that people in Maine and across the country care about when her opposition could make a difference. She has sided with Trump and her party on many critical votes while retaining her power for herself—and for the GOP.

In another interview, Collins was asked about Elon Musk funding a super PAC helping her get elected, after his disastrous DOGE effort and his “online behavior,” which includes the proliferation of white supremacist and extremist content on X—from Musk personally, as well as from extremists he allows on the platform—and controversies involving sexualized images generated by Grok. Collins professed ignorance of Musk’s PAC efforts and then defended aspects of DOGE, saying she had spoken with Musk in the past and essentially expressing gratitude for some of his efforts.

It would have been better if the reporter in this case had pushed further on the extremism on Musk’s platform and the controversies surrounding Grok. But it did show Collins unwilling to criticize a man whose platform has repeatedly faced criticism for amplifying violent misogyny and racism, while Grok has faced investigations and condemnation for generating sexualized images, including of children—and whose super PAC is now spending money to help elect her. And again, that complicates the moderate image she needs to maintain with Maine voters.

In the past, Collins might have finessed these situations better. But she was also more confident of her standing, without the kind of difficult approval numbers and larger national political climate she finds herself in now. She’s always “concerned,” as we know, but now she seems desperately so—about her own career.

She is taking risks, going for the jugular, making cold statements and accepting political help from—and even praising aspects of the work of—a deeply controversial figure like Musk. Whatever the calculation behind each individual move, taken together they reveal a senator under enormous political pressure.

In one other area, Collins is very much following the Trump playbook. For years, she portrayed herself as a reliable ally to the LGBTQ community. In 2014, the Human Rights Campaign endorsed Collins, even though she had declined to take a position on Maine’s 2009 and 2012 marriage-equality ballot measures. The endorsement was criticized by many in the LGBTQ community, who believed Collins hadn’t done enough to earn it. And like Trump, about whom The New York Times wrote a 2016 piece highlighting his supposedly “more accepting views on gay issues” than other Republicans, it helped her keep the moderate mask on.

But Collins, like Trump, has since taken a stark turn on transgender rights. After Collins voted to confirm Kavanaugh, the Human Rights Campaign—which had endorsed her three times—broke with her and endorsed her Democratic opponent in 2020. Other LGBTQ groups also lined up against her. Whatever political benefit Collins once got from cultivating a reputation as a Republican ally of the LGBTQ community ended, and now she’s willing to embrace anti-LGBTQ politics.

Last year, despite having declined to take public positions on Maine’s marriage-equality ballot measures, Collins was one of the early signatures on an anti-trans petition. Fortunately, the measure didn’t make the ballot. But now, a super PAC supporting Collins is spending $1.1 million on ads attacking Jackson over transgender issues.

As the mask slips, we’re seeing the truer Susan Collins—and we’re seeing just how concerned she really is.