For the next ten months members of either
political party are going to get inundating with fundraising letters about the
same senator. Republicans will be
arguing how vital it is to keep Susan Collins in the Senate;
Democrats will be making arguments how vital it is to get her out.
I think something more instructive might be
to ask a question that I'm pretty sure the majority of Americans, regardless of
their political preference have ever asked: why does Maine which has
been going Democratic reliably in the 21st century keep sending Collins
to the Senate? And there are lessons both parties have failed to take away from
it.
On one side there may be the simplistic
interpretation too many Americans on either side make: if a state has been
going Republican or Democratic for on the Presidential map for decades why
should the opposing party throw money away in what will certainly be futile
races? The Republicans have long considered New England is hopelessly,
ridiculously liberal and that there are no hopes for their party. And that
conclusion has never been accurate. In a later article I'll be making a case as
to why Republicans might be able to make a gain in this cycle in a New England
state in the Senate but for now I'll just point out that during the 21st
century Maine has always served as an outlier for Republicans in this section
of the country.
On the other side there is the issue of
ranked choice voices. For much of the 21st century academic voices
(which are almost always progressive) have argued that this format of electing
candidates should be put in every state and at a Presidential level as well.
Finally there is the fact that Maine has
always had a strong preference for independent candidates and that has been a
huge issue
So in this article I'm going to do a
semi-deep dive into elections in Maine when either Senator was up for
reelection during the 21st century. Each year I will also look at
the Congressional and gubernatorial elections to see just how this system has
revealed that even when Maine has always been purple then it looks – and it
truth a lot closer to red in many places.
2002
Two years after Al Gore won this state in
the Presidency Susan Collins won reelection for the first time. This was one of
three Senate seats up for election in a state Al Gore won: the other two were
Oregon and New Mexico (the Republicans won those states too, for the record)
Collins won by seventeen points over Chellie Pingree, the State Senate Majority
leader. She did so even as the Democrats won both congressional seats and John
Baldacci narrowly won the gubernatorial race.
2006
In what was a big year for the Democrats
under Howard Dean's leadership of the DNC, Olympia Snowe won in a landslide over
her Democrat opponent. The best hope the party had of winning was for Snowe to
retire and she didn't consider it that year. She won with 70 percent of the
vote. She did so even as both Maine Democrats Tom Allen and Mike Michaud also
won reelections in landslides.
John Baldacci won reelection but only by a
narrow plurality. Barbara Merill ran as an Independent and got 21 percent of
the voter while Pat LaMarche of the Green Party got 9.5 percent.
2008
When Collins was first elected she had
pledged to serve only two terms. However she chose to run for reelection and
she trounced her Democratic opponent Tom Allen, who had resigned from his
Congressional seat. Collins would be the only Republican Senate candidate to
win a state that Barack Obama carried in his landmark election. She would
outpoll John McCain in that state by nearly 150,000 – and Obama by over 23,000.
The Democrats held both seats in Congress.
2010 Maine Gubernatorial Election
With John Baldacci term limited the
election was between Republican Paul LePage, Democrat Libby Mitchell and two
independents Eliot Cutler and Shawn Moody. LaPage won with only 37.6 percent of
the vote. His win was due to vote splitting between Mitchell and Cutler, a
Democrat turned independent. Mitchell's performance was the worst of any
Democratic gubernatorial candidate since 1998, becoming the only Democratic
nominee in the history of Maine to not carry a single county.
As governor LePage would attempt to roll
back child labor laws and would issue 642 vetoes, more than all his predecessor
since 1917 combined. Almost all of them came when Democrats regained the
legislature in 2013. He was famously in favor of capital punishment, opposed to
campaign financing such as the Maine Clean elections act and supporting the
idea of removing children of welfare recipients if the recipients were found using
illegal drugs. He opposed raising taxing and criticized Maine's child labor
laws, saying there was nothing wrong with a twelve year old doing work. He was
adamantly opposed to climate change and called for the repeal of Obamacare,
opposed same sex marriage and wanted to eliminate income tax. Famously known
for bombastic and off-the-cuff remarks he very quickly became one of the most
loathed governors in the states' history but…we'll get to that.
2012
After Olympia Snowe announced her retirement
Angus King ran for the Senate and would win in a landslide, winning what was
the first Maine Senate race since 1988 that had not been won by a
Republican. He would agree to caucus with the Democrats after meeting with both
Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell.
The Democrats held both their seats in the
House
2014
For the first time in 2014 Susan Collins had
a target on her back as she was the only Republican up for reelection in a
state that Obama had won in 2012. Just
as in 2008 Collins won in nearly as big a landslide as before this time with 68
percent of the vote.
The year was a disaster for Democrats
across the board as the Republicans gained their biggest margins in both houses
of Congress since 1928. One of those seats was the Maine 2nd district.
Mike Michaud retired for governor and
Bruce Poliquin narrowly defeated Emily Cain to become the sole Republican
representing a House district in New England.
The Gubernatorial race was considered a
lean Democratic election given how low LaPage's approval ratings were. Michaud and
Eliot Cutler ran against LePage. Michaud refuses to attend any debates where
Cutler was present. LePage won reelection with 48 percent of the vote to
Michaud's 43 percent and Cutler's 8.4 in what was considered a minor upset.
2018
Angus King, running for reelection for the
first time, trounced both his Republican and Democratic opponent. It was the
first election in history to take place with ranked choice voting but it didn't
matter because King won easily.
Just as notable was Jared Golden's run
against Poliquin who'd won reelection twice before. In the first election Poliquin finished ahead
of Golden with little more than 2000 votes. However the newly implemented system
caused the votes of the independent to be ranked second choice and Golden won
by 3000 votes, despite Poliquin's attempt to appeal the decision.
Janet Mills would win the gubernatorial
race that year, becoming the first Democrat since 1982 to win a majority of the
popular vote.
2020
The Democrats really wanted to get rid of
Susan Collins in 2020, and by this point her polling numbers were underwater
across the country. She won by her narrowest margin yet winning by only 8.6 percent.
Nevertheless she still outpolled Donald Trump by more than 57, 000 votes and
only got 18,000 votes fewer then Biden. And she still won with 51 percent of
the vote avoiding a run-off.
Jared Golden did better defeating
Republican Dale Crafts in a district that Trump carried.
And now is as good a time as any to discuss
Golden. Golden has been one of the few congressional Democrats to win elections
in district that Trump has carried multiple times. As I mentioned before in
2022 Golden considered himself, Marie Glusenkamp Perez and Mary Peltola the new
Blue Dog Democrats. He has famously argued that he is an 'obstinate
independent'. This is in large part because he represents the second most rural
district in the United States and the only district in New England to do so in
2020 and in 2024.
Golden's votes have reflected that. He
voted with Republicans against the George Floyd Justice in Policing act, voted
against overturning student loan debt (Perez was the other Democrat) opposed calls
for a ceasefire in Gaza but urged support for troops in Ukraine, was the only
Democrat to vote with Republicans against the Build Back Better Act and one of four
Democrats to vote in favor of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. He
has universally in favor of rights for abortion and the legalization of
marijuana.
He also shows the capability to evolve as a
legislator. He voted against gun control laws multiple times in his first years
in Congress but after the shootings in Lewiston he changed his stance,
apologized, and called for a federal ban on assault weapons. However he
admitted he said he still believed "Any law-abiding and competent citizen
should have fairly easy access to firearms' even as he rejected the idea of
carrying an AR-15 to the grocery store
And in June of 2024 he wrote an Op-Ed in
the Times that rejected the idea that a second Trump term would present 'a
unique threat to our democracy'. Famously during the fall 2024 campaign he gave
an interview saying that protecting democracy was 'not a winning issue for
Democrats'. Considering he held his seat while Trump won, at the very least you
could argue the people he represented in Maine agreed with him on that fact.
Golden has been one of the few if not only
Congressional Democrats to constantly cross party lines in support either of Trump
or Republicans. He openly supporting Trump's tariff policy and criticized the
party's perceived shift towards defending free trade deals and the stock
market. And he was the only congressional Democrat to vote for the Republican
stopgap bill to avert a government shut down and, as I mentioned, was one of
eight Democrats in the House to vote to reopen it a month later.
All of this made him a constant target of
abuse from members of his own party and in November of 2025 he announced he
would not stand for reelection. While he said he was concerned about the increasing
threat of political violence, one can't help but think he is just as concerned
about how the increasingly leftward shouting of the Democrats has increasingly
shouted down the possibility for respectable disagreement.
This is a huge loss for the Democratic
Party in every way possible. Considering Golden is only 43 he could easily have
been the voice the Democrats could have used to rebuild bridges with so many working
class voters, the kind they will need to contend going forward. Many actually wanted
him to run against Collins this year, despite the fact he had been a member of
her staff while she was serving on the Homeland Security committee. He was
already a Democrat at that point so he would have been able to start rebuilding
trust between the parties no matter when he ran.
Now there is a good chance that going into
the 2026 election the Democrats could not only not defeat Collins but that they
will also lose Golden's seat in the House. The district Golden is in was, to
repeat, one of the ones that Trump has carried multiple times and is one of the
most competitive in the country. In a Congressional election where every seat
will count the party can't allow any defections – and Golden's not running will
give the Republicans one of their biggest openings.
Despite the fact that Maine has gone Democratic
in every election this century the state has always had an independent streak
that has made it a lot tricker for them to win elected office than any state in
New England. (And as we shall see in a later article, that's at a Congressional
level but not always gubernatorial.)
And despite the supposedly liberal nature
of New England to this point it has yet to be fertile ground for the Justice
Democrats that AOC has advocated for. In the 8 plus years of their existence only
Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts 7th District has been able to win
in that stretch of country. Attempts to win that state's 1st
district in 2020 and the third district in 2018 both ended in failure. They
attempt to run for the gubernatorial and lieutenant governor race of Rhode
Island in 2018 and lost both of them and Christine Halquist lost the governor's
race in Vermont that same year. Betsy Sweet ran against Sara Gideon for the Democratic
nomination for Senate in 2020 and was flattened by Sara Gideon. To this point
the Justice Democrats have endorsed 8 newcomers for this year's elections but
none, as of yet, are in New England, much less Maine.
As has been their want for the last two
times she's been up for reelection the Democrats will do everything in their
power to bring Susan Collins down. Who
that Democrat will be remains to be seen but whoever it is it's not going to be
a picnic. Collins has proven time and again that she can run ahead of almost
any Democrat running for President her entire career, even as her margins of
victory continue to shrink. (And for the record a margin of 8.6 percent is
considered sizable by any reasonable metric.)
I argued in my first article in this series
that the Democrats need to expand the map in the Senate because 'they can't
keep trying to beat Susan Collins'. On a practical matter I'd argue they shouldn't
waste time trying to do so anyway. She has been on their bad side for the
entire 21st century and she keeps beating them. There comes a time
when you should cut your losses and wait for her to actually retire when you'd
have a better chance. And considering how much effort the GOP will spend saving
Collins spending money you could put your time and money to better use in
places like Ohio and Iowa.
I know that I'm wasting my time and energy
making this argument and that I will probably end up endorsing whoever runs in
Maine. (Depends on the candidate.) I'm just not going to waste a lot of anxiety
worrying about the way so many of my fellow Democrats are going to. After 2020 I stopped believing Democrats when
they said certain candidates were more vulnerable then others and I also know
the Republicans have a much better history protecting their vulnerable incumbents
than Democrats have.
Ultimately it is Golden's not seeking
reelection that makes me pragmatic on the Dems chances against Collins this
year. If a Democrat who could win elections when Trump was on the ballot wasn't
good enough to be in your party, what makes you think you can come up with
someone who has a proven record of outpolling Democrats when they're on the
ballot? It's not personal, it's just math.
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