Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, claimed victory on Wednesday in her bid to safe a fifth time period, beating again an avalanche of Demo
Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, claimed victory on Wednesday in her bid to safe a fifth time period, beating again an avalanche of Democratic cash and liberal anger in essentially the most troublesome race of her profession to defeat Sara Gideon, a Democrat, and strengthen the social gathering’s maintain on the Senate.
Her triumph, reported by The Related Press, preserved Ms. Collins’s standing as the one remaining New England Republican in Congress. She turned the primary senator within the state’s historical past to be chosen by voters for a fifth time period within the higher chamber, dashing Democratic hopes of a vital pickup as their ambitions of a Senate takeover hung by a thread.
Ms. Collins mentioned she obtained “a really gracious name” from Ms. Gideon, who additionally gave a concession speech.
“Whatever the consequence, we constructed a motion that can assist us make progress for years to return,” Ms. Gideon mentioned in her concession speech.
Ms. Collins, 67, who had trailed in most public polling this yr, overcame the liberal groundswell partially by centering her marketing campaign on native points and distancing herself from Mr. Trump, even declining to say whether or not she would vote for him. Toiling to protect a picture she has fastidiously cultivated as an independent-minded average, she reminded voters of her accomplishments for the state and emphasised her seemingly ascendance to the helm of the highly effective Appropriations Committee, which allocates federal spending, ought to Republicans hold the bulk, in addition to her private relationships within the state.
Nationwide Democrats, livid after Ms. Collins turned a key vote in assist of his tax plan and the affirmation of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Courtroom in 2018, had singled out Ms. Collins as a high goal on their path to reclaiming the Senate majority. Because of this, the race had grow to be the costliest in Maine historical past, with nationwide donors flooding the state with tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} and an onslaught of damaging marketing campaign advertisements.
Ms. Gideon, the speaker of Maine’s Home, had sought to border the marketing campaign as a referendum on Republicans, portray Ms. Collins as out of contact with the state and in lock-step with Mr. Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the bulk chief. She capitalized on the rising polarization of the state within the Trump period, as Democrats and impartial voters turned more and more annoyed with Ms. Collins’s sample of expressing misery on the president’s language and actions, solely to facet together with her social gathering on essential points.
The pandemic provided a possibility for Ms. Collins to counter the narrative by highlighting her work with Democrats, as she championed what would grow to be a preferred federal mortgage program to stabilize hundreds of small companies throughout the nation within the $2.2 trillion stimulus regulation enacted within the spring. The creation of the Paycheck Safety Program, together with a sequence of measures to overtake and replenish it, additionally allowed Ms. Collins to attract a pointy distinction with Ms. Gideon, who adjourned the state’s legislature in March and didn’t safe bipartisan assist to reconvene it.
Ms. Collins, whose vote for Justice Kavanaugh spurred critics to amass practically $four million for her eventual opponent, additional burnished her credentials as a average keen to interrupt together with her social gathering when Senate Republicans rushed to fill the Supreme Courtroom emptiness left in September by the dying of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Ms. Collins turned one among solely two senators in her social gathering to object to transferring ahead to substantiate Decide Amy Coney Barrett earlier than the election, and the one one to vote “no.” She pointed to her objections after her fellow Republicans stonewalled Decide Merrick B. Garland, President Barack Obama’s choose to succeed Justice Antonin Scalia after his dying in 2016, after they insisted such a seat shouldn’t be crammed in an election yr.
With Republicans in any other case practically united on transferring ahead, they didn’t want her vote anyway, and the bizarre circumstances allowed Ms. Collins, who helps abortion rights, to sidestep the query of whether or not to substantiate a nominee who personally opposed abortion.
In a press release, Ms. Collins emphasised that she was merely objecting to the method, saying, “My vote doesn’t mirror any conclusion that I’ve reached about Decide Barrett’s {qualifications}.”