Pressed on her work with Trump, Maine’s Collins trips over key part of her record

Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who is in a difficult re-election contest, was unable in her final debate to cite a case where her opposition to President Donald Trump changed an outcome. That matters because it feeds the central complaint her opponents have made against her campaign, according to MS NOW.

Collins often says she will stand up to Trump and other Republican leaders. The New York Times examined her voting history and found she has broken with her party more often than any other GOP senator. But according to the Times, those defections have seldom frustrated the president's aims in his second term. Critics, in the Times' framing, say she defies him only when it doesn't matter.

On Thursday night, in her fourth debate with Democratic nominee Troy Jackson, a moderator asked her to name a time her vote against her party and Trump significantly altered the result. Collins said there were several, but offered only her early-last-year push against Pete Hegseth's nomination as defense secretary. Hegseth was confirmed anyway, and the moderator noted that the effort had not changed the outcome.

Summarized by PolitiKool from MS NOW’s reporting. Read the full story at MS NOW →