Maine’s Democratic voters should not fall for Collins’ pitch | Letter
Conservative principles face implementation challenges as policy meets political complexity.
The letter writer calls it insanity to keep sending Susan Collins back to the Senate. We’d call it something else: honesty about what Maine actually wants. The frustration isn’t that Collins won’t fall in line.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
Read all of our coverage of Maine's 2026 election or stay up to date with the latest developments through the Maine Political Report in your inbox or text messages from politics editor Kirby Wilson. Insanity, as the adage goes, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Yet — again and again — Maine voters send Susan Collins back to the U.S. Senate. The result of this action has never changed: always concerned but never taking action, always siding with Republican hardliners except when they have enough votes to let her appear centrist, always avoiding direct engagement with voters.
Compounding this insanity are numerous “lifelong Democrats” who will once again fall for it and vote for her, shirking the history of the party of FDR and the New Deal. We could have great things from paying our taxes: universal healthcare, infrastructure, social safety nets for retirement or life-altering events, free education and not one child ever going hungry again.
Susan Collins desires none of this for Mainers. She will always do what Donald Trump tells her to do. I, as a lifelong Democrat, am not falling for it. I am not falling for the relentless onslaught of mailers paid for by her billionaire donors.
I am not falling for the empty words of a woman who willingly voted to take away the bodily autonomy of other women and girls. I am not falling for the promise that this time, this sixth term of a promised two, will be different.
I want the world to substantially change for the better, for myself, for my daughters, for all Mainers. Join me in stopping this insanity. Vote Troy Jackson.
Original source:
Read at The Portland Press HeraldHow We See It
New Republican Times Editorial Board
The letter writer calls it insanity to keep sending Susan Collins back to the Senate. We’d call it something else: honesty about what Maine actually wants. The frustration isn’t that Collins won’t fall in line. It’s that the left keeps expecting her to be a Democrat. That’s not a Maine problem. That’s a projection problem.
Collins has her flaws, and she’s never been a fire-breathing conservative. But she tells voters who she is, and they keep reelecting her. Her votes on Supreme Court confirmations and tax reform were predictable, not betrayals. The letter’s version of “action” appears to mean voting with Chuck Schumer. That’s not a standard any Republican from a purple state can meet, and pretending otherwise is the real repetitive behavior here. The voters aren’t confused. The letter writer is.
Maine’s electorate has a long streak of splitting tickets, and they don’t need anyone in Portland or Washington telling them they’ve been hoodwinked. Collins is a known quantity. She’ll take a few tough votes against the GOP, and she’ll hold the line on the big ones. That trade-off has kept her employed for three decades. It’s not insanity. It’s arithmetic. The left keeps demanding Collins be a progressive, and Maine keeps giving her a job. One of those things is working.
The more interesting question is why the letter writer is so angry at Collins instead of the voters. Maybe because it’s easier to blame one senator than to admit that a blue state is comfortable sending a moderate Republican to represent it. That’s not a failure of democracy. That’s the system working as designed. Call it measured, call it frustrating, but don’t call it insane. Maine knows exactly what it’s doing.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.