New York Times: She Voted for a Justice Who Overturned Roe. Now it Haunts Her on the Trail.

Augusta, ME – Susan Collins once again confirmed she would vote for Justice Kavanaugh again, despite his decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to new audio first reported by the New York Times.

LISTEN:

• Voter: If you could clone Justice Kavanaugh would you do it?

• Susan Collins: I would vote for him again, yes, if that’s what you’re asking.

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New York Times: She Voted for a Justice Who Overturned Roe. Now it Haunts Her on the Trail.

By Lisa Lerer and Beth Reinhard

August 1, 2026

• On Oct. 6, 2018, Ms. Collins, one of only two Senate Republicans who support abortion rights, cast a deciding vote to confirm Brett M. Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. Four years later, Justice Kavanaugh voted with the conservative majority to overturn Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion for nearly half a century.

• […]

• Now, Ms. Collins’s support for Justice Kavanaugh has become a major issue in her first re-election campaign since Roe was overturned, a race that could swing control of the Senate. […]

• Publicly, Ms. Collins appears unbowed. “I do not regret that vote,” she told reporters in Portland in June. She went even further after an event at a fire station in Randolph, Maine, this month.

• “I would vote for him again, yes,” she said, according to audio acquired by an operative for American Bridge, a major Democratic super PAC.

• […]

• Kay Rand, who served as chief of staff for Senator Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, said the vote shifted views of Ms. Collins in Maine, even as she handily won re-election in 2020.

• “It’s just never been the same for her since the Kavanaugh vote,” said Ms. Rand, who worked for Mr. King during the Kavanaugh hearings. “It was a lightning rod, a galvanizing issue.”