Over the last 29 years, the New England Congressional Delegation has gone from having seven of its 12 Senators be Republican, to today, just one. Maine Senator Susan Collins is currently the only Republican remaining in the Senate across six New England states.
Part of her image has been reliant on her self-description as an independent voice for Maine in Washington. To bolster that public stance, her official Senate website uses the word “bipartisan” more than 2,600 times, according to WMTW.
But in recent years, her record has told less of a story of an independent voice for Maine and more of a partisan voice for the President. Over the last year, her votes have aligned closely with President Donald Trump’s priorities. Collins has voted with the president 95 percent of the time, according to CQ Roll Call. Some of those have been key votes that have helped the President enact many of his major priorities.
In June, Collins voted for a reconciliation package that passed 52-47 and gave ICE and Border Patrol $70 billion. Despite calls from her colleagues for stricter oversight limits around the funding, the final bill didn’t include any new guardrails around judicial warrants for home entries or to bar officers from wearing masks.
Collins also cast the deciding vote to begin debate on the One Big Beautiful Bill, which cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid. Maine Public News called that vote pivotal in moving the bill forward.
In recent months, as the war in Iran has waged on, Collins, who holds significant sway over federal spending given her role as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has supported the President’s efforts, even as the war has driven up gas prices by 41 percent.
She ignored concerns about a $33 billion funding request for the Iran War. And on five separate occasions, she voted against War Powers resolutions that would have reined in the president’s authority over the war with Iran.
Collins often points to her record as proof that she puts Maine first. But her record over the past year shows a senator who, on the votes that mattered most for Mainers, has stood with President Trump.
