President Donald Trump has thrown his support behind longtime Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in the Senate race in Maine, even though the longtime senator isn’t his “best friend at all.”
Collins is heading to the election in November to compete against Democratic nominee and political outsider Graham Platner.
When Trump was pressed on whether he would support her bid for reelection, he cited Collins’s immaculate voting record in Congress. The six-term senator recently set a record by casting her 10,000th Senate vote in a row.
“She’s a person that never missed a vote in many years,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I mean, she’s like had 10,000 votes, she had 10,000 votes, she never missed a vote, unfortunately, because sometimes she voted against me.”
Collins reached the major milestone on June 5. The vote, which went against her own party, was a "Yay" vote on an amendment by Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) to protect Medicare.
The Maine senator has yet to miss a vote since taking office in 1997.
“She’s a sane woman, and she’s a respected person, maybe a little different ideology than me,” Trump added.
It remains uncertain whether Trump’s support for Collins will help or hurt her reelection bid.
Over the years, Collins has maintained a careful balance—staying close to the president when it served her political interests while periodically creating distance and demonstrating a disciplined sense of independence.
“She’s shown time and time again where her state’s electorate is. She understands what’s too far, she understands where she needs to be,” according to Republican political consultant Matt Mackowiak.
First elected in 1996, Susan won reelection in 2002 by 16 percent, according to her campaign website. She later won reelection by 23 percent in a highly competitive race in 2008. Collins won reelection in 2014 with more than 68 percent of the vote. In 2020, she won reelection by nearly nine points in 2020, despite being down in every public poll, her campaign noted.
Platner has acknowledged Collins’s experience but said Mainers are ready for something new and are tired of the old political establishment.
“Susan Collins may have started her career decades ago in Washington with good intentions, but she has become just as spineless and corrupt as the establishment she now serves,” Platner told supporters Tuesday while celebrating his primary win.
Currently, Republicans have a 53–45 majority in the chamber. Democrats need to flip four seats in November to take control of the Senate.