{"id":873665,"date":"2026-10-07T07:16:32","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T07:16:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/873665\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T07:16:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T07:16:32","slug":"not-exactly-his-favorite-senator-susan-collins-distances-herself-from-trump-in-maine-debate-us-senate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/873665\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Not exactly his favorite senator\u2019: Susan Collins distances herself from Trump in Maine debate | US Senate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Susan Collins, the Republican senator for Maine<\/a>, pointedly distanced herself from Donald Trump in a televised debate with Democratic challenger Troy Jackson on Tuesday, as she sought to present an image of independence in a state that has voted against Trump three times.<\/p>\n

Proclaiming herself as not the US president\u2019s \u201cfavorite senator\u201d, Collins made the highly unusual boast for a Republican that she had voted with Joe Biden, a Democrat, more than 90% of the time when he was president. She also emphasized her differences with her fellow Republicans<\/a>, saying she voted against her own party more than any other senator.<\/p>\n

Collins\u2019 defensiveness came amid a determined onslaught from Jackson, 58, a veteran former state legislator who was getting his first chance to present himself to a broad audience since replacing Graham Platner as the Democratic candidate in a contest that could be vital to the party\u2019s hopes of winning the Senate.<\/p>\n

Platner, a former harbor master, was forced to withdraw<\/a> from the race in July after facing sexual assault allegations, which he denied, leaving Democrats racing against the clock to replace a candidate who had built up momentum campaigning on a populist progressive platform.<\/p>\n

Jackson painted Collins as a Trump loyalist, saying she voted with the president 96% of the time. He also doggedly focused on her 2018 vote for the conservative supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh, tying it to the court\u2019s subsequent overturning of Roe v Wade, which had for half a century guaranteed the national right to abortion.<\/p>\n

\u201cTonight is about who you stand with when it matters,\u201d Jackson said in a pithy opening statement. \u201cEight years ago today, Maine women went to DC and begged Senator Collins not to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, but she did it anyways.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe helped overturn Roe v Wade, and today she says she has no regrets. Would you trust her to pick the next supreme court justice?\u201d<\/p>\n

Collins, 73, who has been a senator since 1996, has frequently presented herself as a moderate who stands against more radical trends in her own party. The posture is in line with Maine\u2019s profile as a more Democratic-leaning state, which Trump has not won in any of his three presidential campaigns and which has voted for Democrat presidential candidates in every election since 1992.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Collins went to unusual lengths to differentiate herself from Trump on a range of issues, including the war with Iran, which she said she voted to end nine times, calling it \u201cnot well thought out\u201d.<\/p>\n

Collins reacted with something close to alarm when the moderator, Gregg Lagerquist, said Trump had suggested that the president might pay a campaign visit to Maine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that President Trump is going to come to Maine,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s talking about going to a lot of different states. I\u2019ve heard nothing from his office, and I\u2019m not exactly his favorite senator.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collins stressed her differences with the president on specific issues pertinent to the Maine economy, including rural healthcare and tariffs against Canada, with which the state shares a border.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been the most outspoken opponent of the tariffs on Canada,\u201d she said. \u201cCanada is not China. It\u2019s our neighbor and our friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polls show the two candidates running neck and neck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Susan Collins, the Republican senator for Maine, pointedly distanced herself from Donald Trump in a televised debate with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-873665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}