GOP Sen. Susan CollinsSusan Margaret CollinsRepublicans prepare to punt on next COVID-19 relief bill Trump tweets spark fresh headache for Republicans Trump’s tweet on protester sparks GOP backlash MORE (Maine) says she intends to run for reelection in 2020, though she hasn’t announced a final decision.
“That is my intention,” Collins told Time in article published Thursday when asked about running for a fifth term in the Senate.
If she runs she is expected to be a top Democratic target as the party tries to chart a path back to the Senate majority. ADVERTISEMENTCollins is one of only two Republican senators up for reelection in 2020 in states that former Secretary of State Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonWhite House accuses Biden of pushing ‘conspiracy theories’ with Trump election claim Biden courts younger voters — who have been a weakness Trayvon Martin’s mother Sybrina Fulton qualifies to run for county commissioner in Florida MORE won in 2016. Progressives, and even some of her own supporters, fumed over her decision to support Supreme Court Justice Brett KavanaughBrett Michael KavanaughGOP senators urge Trump to back off Murkowski threat Judd Gregg: A government in free fall The 7 most anticipated Supreme Court decisions MORE last year, when she provided him with the 50th vote needed to be confirmed. Collins gave a roughly 45 minute speech before casting her vote explaining why she was supporting him despite sexual assault allegations. Kavanaugh has denied the accusations against him.
“I believe that she is a survivor of a sexual assault and that this trauma has upended her life,” Collins said on the Senate floor, referring to Kavanaugh’s first accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.
But Collins said other individuals allegedly at the party, where Ford says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the early 1980s, could not corroborate Ford’s account. And, she warned, that if senators rejected Kavanaugh over the accusations it would be “hugely damaging to this confirmation process.”
A fundraising effort by Maine People’s Alliance and Mainers for Accountable Leadership briefly crashed the Crowdpac website and has raised more than $3.7 million for a potential Democratic opponent in 2020.
Collins, who was first elected to the Senate in 1996, won her 2008 reelection bid by more than 22 percentage points. That margin widened to 37 points in 2014.
Clinton won Maine by 2.9 points in 2016, a considerably narrower margin than the 15 point victory for then-President Obama over GOP nominee Mitt RomneyWillard (Mitt) Mitt RomneyMilley discussed resigning from post after Trump photo-op: report Trump on collision course with Congress over bases with Confederate names Attorney says 75-year-old man shoved by Buffalo police suffered brain injury MORE four years earlier. Click Here: camiseta rosario central