“I’d rather have someone representing Maine who isn’t bought and paid for.”

Augusta, ME – This week, Mainers are calling out Susan Collins for being “bought and paid for” by Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and their billionaire cronies. Mainers point out that after funding the wealthy with “tax cut after tax cut delivered off the back of our lagging wages…now the windfall is returning to her campaign coffers.”

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CentralMaine.com: Musk support of Collins says it all | Letter

By Sydney Michalski, Columbia

August 11, 2026

• I think it’s a great sign that Elon Musk is planning to spend $100 million to reelect Susan Collins and other Republican candidates. It’s a great sign of exactly what people get when they vote for people like Collins. A veneer of public service, wrapped in decades of performative concern, purchased by the richest people in the richest industries. She funded them with tax cut after tax cut delivered off the back of our lagging wages, and now the windfall is returning to her campaign coffers.

• I see what that money bought: A hollowed-out middle class; rural schools, hospitals and nursing homes closing; jobs declining; cost of living rising; and dreams of college and home ownership slipping out of reach for the next generation. And I see how the richest guy in our state, and the richest guy in the world, are super-funding Susan.

• This is the job she was paid to do, funneling wealth and resources to the top. And she delivered. And became a millionaire herself while she was at it.

• Susan Collins needs to convince regular Mainers that she works for us, and all those campaign ads aren’t going to pay for themselves. I’m sure Elon thinks that Mainers will be excited to have an eccentric celebrity like himself buying us a senator. But me personally, I just don’t believe that these donor-class asset-strippers have Maine’s best interests in mind. They just see something else they want to own. And I’d rather have someone representing Maine who isn’t bought and paid for.

Bangor Daily News: Mainers cannot afford a sixth term for Susan Collins

Dennis Chinoy, Bangor

August 11, 2026

• The problem I see is that the earmarks [Collins] bestows don’t offset the economic injury inflicted on a large swath of Maine’s population by her support for President Donald Trump’s agenda that’s concentrating wealth in fewer and fewer hands.

• Greater still is the total burden we bear for her seeming tacit support of the Trump administration’s corruption on a colossal scale, trashing of democratic institutions, putting rogue ICE patrols on our streets and her fateful vote leading to the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

• Collins’ pivotal vote to bring the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill to the Senate floor assured the continuation of tax cuts favoring the wealthiest, subsidized primarily by cuts to SNAP and Medicaid. In Maine, it has resulted in roughly 34,000 people losing their Medicaid coverage, nearly 23,000 to abandon their Affordable Care Act health insurance, while double that number incurred spiking premiums when ACA subsidies expired. Thirteen-thousand Mainers have lost SNAP benefits. All these numbers are likely to increase.

• Her vote in March against invoking a war powers resolution enabled the continuation of the Iran war, with $4 a gallon gas prices now piled onto Mainers’ already stretched budgets, and a taxpayer cost accumulating at $1,000 per second. These financial strains are especially harsh when 45% of Maine households currently struggle to pay for their basic needs of housing, food, childcare, healthcare and transportation.

• Though affordability issues for Mainers will likely be central, I believe Collins’ shameful vote to put Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court deserves to dog her in the next 12 weeks. I think her declaration, “I do not regret that vote” will not help matters. Nor do I think Collins blandly noting she was “disappointed” by the ruling gives the impression she has much appreciation for the disastrous consequences for millions of women nationwide. Instead, Collins went on to say after Roe v. Wade reversal, “I feel misled,” as though she is the victim here.

• For Collins, another ill-timed tragedy is the killing by ICE of Johan Durán Guerrero at a traffic stop in Biddeford. The killing took place shortly after she voted to award ICE another $70 billion without any restrictions on their behavior. […]

Portland Press Herald: The Susan Collins playbook follows the money | Letter

By Steve Mischissin, Camden

August 10, 2026

• Instead of being a true representative of the people — supporting our civil rights, voting rights, a woman’s right to choose, affordable healthcare, reining in ICE, having billionaires pay their fair share of taxes and holding a corrupt president accountable — here is Sen. Susan Collins’ game plan: She will feign concern for these matters but always support this corrupt president, no matter what damage he continually inflicts upon this country.

• For protecting the president and billionaires, she receives overwhelming funding from Republican PACs for her reelection campaign.

• With Sen. Collins as our senator, we here in Maine (and elsewhere in the U.S.) see innocent people gunned down on the street by ICE, SNAP benefits taken away from children, the middle class paying more of the federal tax burden, a Supreme Court taking away our rights, the Epstein cover-up, the U.S. in an unprovoked and costly war, rising inflation, tariffs, loss of women’s rights, etc.

• The senator voted for billions of dollars to fund ICE. Collins is beholden not to the voters of Maine, but the wealthy millionaires and billionaires who she curries favor with.

• Mainers should not be fooled by her true allegiances; she is not for us.