Augusta, Maine – Last week, the Maine Democratic Party launched its “No Regrets” accountability campaign marking the fourth anniversary of the Dobbs decision, highlighting Susan Collins’ decisive vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh and her continued support for anti-abortion judges.

The launch featured a new digital ad, statewide newspaper ads with prominent placements in the Portland Press Herald and Bangor Daily News, and a press conference outside Portland City Hall.

The campaign came after Collins lied during a Fox News interview that her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh had no impact on the overturning of Roe v. Wade. In reality, Roe was overturned by a 5-4 vote, with Kavanaugh casting the decisive fifth vote. Collins also recently doubled down on that confirmation, saying she does not regret casting the decisive vote to put Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court.

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Portland Press Herald: How Maine Democrats plan to make abortion an issue for Susan Collins

• The Maine Democratic Party this week is launching an ad on television and streaming services featuring Collins’ comments to reporters this month that she doesn’t regret her vote to confirm Kavanaugh.

• The party is also running ads in the state’s two major newspapers, and will hold a news conference with reproductive rights advocates on Wednesday, the four-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning the federal right to an abortion. […]

• “Susan Collins wants Mainers to forget what happened after she cast the decisive vote for Brett Kavanaugh,” Maine Democratic Party spokesperson Kristi Johnston said in a written statement. “But Mainers haven’t forgotten. Her vote helped pave the way for Roe to be overturned and for abortion bans to take effect across the country.”

News Center Maine: Four years on, Maine Democrats blame Sen. Collins’ Kavanaugh confirmation for Supreme Court reversal on abortion rights

• On the fourth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on June 24, 2022, which overturned the federal constitutional right to abortion, the Maine Democratic Party pointed at incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins and the most infamous vote of her 30-year career in the Senate. […]

• “Susan Collins wants Mainers to forget what happened after she cast the decisive vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, but us Mainers have not forgotten,” Devon Murphy-Anderson, executive director of the Maine Democratic Party, said at a news conference in Portland on Wednesday. “Her vote helped pave the way for Roe v. Wade to be overturned and for abortion bans to take effect across our country.” […]

• “For years, she has voted to confirm anti-choice judges nominated by President Trump over and over and over again—more than a dozen anti-choice judges in the last year alone,” Murphy-Anderson said.

WMTW: What Mainers are saying four years after Roe v. Wade was overturned

• Maine’s Democratic Party says the decision to leave abortion laws up to the states still has an impact today, calling for new leadership.

• “Through their actions and through their words, Susan Collins and Bobby Charles have shown that they believe in government overreach into our personal decisions and that us Mainers cannot and should not trust them to protect our rights,” said Devon Murphy-Anderson, executive director of Maine Democrats.

Maine Morning Star: Protesters target Collins’ support of Kavanaugh on Dobbs anniversary

• Earlier Wednesday, Maine Democrats also gathered to criticize Collins for supporting Kavanaugh and other anti-abortion judicial nominees, including Portland attorney Joshua Dunlap. Speakers also warned that reproductive rights could become a major issue in this year’s gubernatorial elections due to Republican candidate Bobby Charles, who they said was “unapologetically pro-life.”

• “Susan Collins and Bobby Charles have shown that they believe in government overreach into our personal decisions, and that us Mainers cannot and should not trust them to protect our rights,” said Devon Murphy-Anderson, executive director of the Maine Democratic Party. “The Dobbs decision may have happened four years ago, but the consequences are still being felt today.”

Bangor Daily News: Susan Collins misstates landmark abortion vote while defending Brett Kavanaugh support

• U.S. Sen. Susan Collins misstated a key detail of the Supreme Court decision ending federal abortion rights, arguing in a Monday interview with Fox News that the court would have ended federal abortion rights regardless of his presence on the bench.

• Kavanaugh, whom the Republican senator backed in a 2018 move that prompted a major Democratic challenge to her, was in the 5-4 majority that made the landmark decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case in 2022.

• Pressed on whether her Kavanaugh vote is a liability for her bid for a sixth term, Collins said she disagreed with the court’s ruling but that Kavanaugh was not decisive. She appeared to be referencing a 6-3 decision in which Chief Justice John Roberts joined conservatives to uphold Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks. He separately argued against overturning Roe.

Daily Beast: Republican Senator, 73, Busted Making Crucial SCOTUS Math Error

• Sen. Susan Collins, 73, has come under fire from Democratic candidate Graham Platner, 41, for casting the deciding vote to confirm conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. Kavanaugh later voted in favor of the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision to overturn abortion rights under Roe v. Wade.

• Collins […] tried to defend her backing for Kavanaugh during a Fox News appearance on Monday. “Let me be clear that I disagreed with the Supreme Court’s 6-to-3 decision overturning Roe v. Wade,” she said. “But the fact is that whether Justice Kavanaugh were confirmed or not, Roe v. Wade would have been overturned, given the 6-to-3 vote.”

• That is incorrect. The Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 ruling, which established a constitutional right to abortion up to the point of fetal viability, by 5 justices to 4, with Kavanaugh’s vote one of the five votes without which Roe v. Wade could have survived.

• CNN’s Erin Burnett was quick to seize on the Maine senator’s blunder in a segment about her interview with Fox News earlier in the day. “The part of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe was actually 5-to-4, with Chief Justice Roberts joining liberal justices,” Burnett said. […]

• The Women’s Health Protection Act would have codified abortion rights in federal law, blunting the impact of Dobbs nationwide. It failed in the Senate in 2022, with Collins voting against it on the grounds that it swept further than Roe v. Wade.