Augusta, ME – This week in the Portland Press Herald, columnist Douglas Rooks argues that Collins has finally “overstayed her welcome.” According to Rooks, Collins “appears incapable of change” and “can’t disclaim responsibility for Trump’s most outrageous actions, especially his unilateral decision to make war on Iran and his whimsical imposition of tariffs without rhyme or reason.”

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Portland Press Herald: Susan Collins may finally have overstayed her welcome

By Douglas Rooks

October 29, 2026

• Something no one seems to have asked Susan Collins, this time around, was why she thought it necessary to run for a sixth term.

• First elected in the 20th century, she has already served far into the 21st, longer than any other popularly elected U.S. senator from Maine. After 30 years, it would seem she has nothing to prove.

• Running for reelection for as long as possible now seems to be the default. It wasn’t always that way. I was apparently alone among Maine journalists in not being surprised that Olympia Snowe, who served alongside Collins for 14 years, decided not to seek reelection in 2012 after 18 years in the Senate, following 14 in the House.

• Snowe was then “only” 65 — retirement age for most people — but the more obvious reason was that the Republican Party had left behind her brand of consensus politics in a rightward lurch that has continued, unchecked, to this day.

• Snowe helped engineer major compromises to support rural hospitals and expand Medicare benefits — and was ready to do the same in 2009 when the Affordable Care Act was introduced. She soon realized, however, that no Republican — including Collins — would join her. Retirement, then, was the right decision.

• So it has been for most of Maine’s leading lights whose service made this small state a watchword for senatorial excellence.

• Ed Muskie, elected to four terms, stepped down two years early to become U.S. secretary of state. Bill Cohen departed after three terms and became Bill Clinton’s defense secretary, a rare crossover Cabinet pick. George Mitchell served a little over two terms and retired as Senate majority leader, going on to negotiate peace in Northern Ireland.

• Collins’ childhood idol, Margaret Chase Smith, was the first Mainer elected to four terms. Smith, then 74, hadn’t intended to run in 1972, but changed her mind after a young Republican challenged her in the primary. She lost in November to Congressman Bill Hathaway, 48, then a typical age for those seeking statewide office.

• Having won five terms, what does Collins expect to do in a sixth that she hasn’t already accomplished? It’s a question she’s struggled to answer throughout this nasty, bitter and seemingly interminable campaign.

• The gap between traditional Republican Party politics and current practice that convinced Olympia Snowe to step down has become a chasm in Donald Trump’s second term. Try as Collins might, she can’t disclaim responsibility for Trump’s most outrageous actions, especially his unilateral decision to make war on Iran and his whimsical imposition of tariffs without rhyme or reason. […]

• Collins claims credit for a last-minute exemption for agricultural products, but what about all the other, equally nonsensical tariffs? If you’re looking for relief from high gas, diesel and fuel oil prices, not to mention food, you won’t vote to endorse Trump’s policies.

• The same goes for Collins’ other claims. The $1.5 billion in grants she claims to have steered toward Maine are dwarfed by cuts in healthcare and nutrition benefits imposed in the 2025 budget bill she voted to advance. […]

• Jackson is for national healthcare. Collins says it would be “too expensive,” even though the U.S. pays far more per person than any other nation, and its heavily privatized system leaves a growing number of millions uninsured.

• Jackson thinks workers need union representation to turn around the deplorable gap between pay for an average service sector job and what it takes to support a family. Collins never mentions the subject.

• Jackson says everyone should pay their fair share under a progressive income tax. Collins favored tax cuts over two decades that created the billionaire class.

• Finally, Jackson has changed and evolved over the years: witness his positions on abortion rights and gun safety. Collins appears incapable of change.

• Yet Trump may be the determining factor in Maine’s Senate race, and many other races, as he insists the election must be about him and nothing else. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, are you better off now than you were when Trump took office? The answer to that pertinent question will soon be known.