Steven Dennis Profile picture
Aug 21, 2019 25 tweets 6 min read Read on X
Susan Collins is touring Maine, touting her independence and raising money as she gears up for what would be an epic reelection fight with control of the Senate potentially at stake —> bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Susan Collins built a bipartisan brand for four terms but in the Trump era, there’s also bipartisan anger: Trump fans mad at her for criticizing their guy and Democrats irate over Kavanaugh, the tax law and more. No senator has seen their approval ratings take a bigger hit.
Might this be Susan Collins’ trump card?
“You know who’s going to be the next chairman of the Appropriations Committee should I choose to run?” she asks me, pointing at herself
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
There are some voters in Maine who care about Collins ability to bring home $$$ - it’s the sort of old-school seniority pitch senators have been using since the beginning of time.
When she first ran in 1996, Susan Collins told voters she’d only serve two terms - “12 years is enough...”

Now she tells me she sees the benefits of seniority in the Senate, which she notes can be particularly valuable for a smaller state like Maine.
This ad attacking Susan Collins for breaking a campaign promise on serving two terms is from 2008:
One sign Susan Collins is actually running: She went to a fundraiser at Leonard Leo’s Maine mansion. Protestors showed up & snapped pics, which went viral. I asked her about the backlash from the fundraiser and she sounded exasperated.
She noted her opponents raised millions after her Kavanaugh vote.
"So I went to a 20-person fundraiser," Collins said. "It’s just ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous."
Example of the viral teeing off on the Leonard Leo fundraiser from former Schumer aide Brian Fallon:
Susan Collins at the Buxton parade earlier this month
One potential exploding pineapple for Susan Collins: She vouched not just for Kavanaugh but predicted how he would vote on Roe, on lawsuit overturning the ACA etc. There’s a long time between now and Election Day...
Susan Collins is swimming against a big blue tide in Maine, where Democrats last year took the governorship, the state Senate, massively expanded their state House majority under Speaker Sara Gideon and flipped a GOP House seat.
Susan Collins strategy: Make the race about what she can do for Maine, not Trump.
She’d rather be talking about CDBG grant money for a local pie baker - $100K - or a $600K grant she championed for community forests (the kinds of programs Trump unsuccessfully targeted for cuts).
Another issue in the race: Guns. Susan Collins backs Manchin-Toomey, not the House-passes background check bill backed by Sara Gideon, etc. Why? She says it doesn’t have enough exemptions for family transfers and the like (though it does have a number of exemptions).
Maine voters narrowly defeated a background check referendum in 2016; talked to a Collins supporter who still has a sticker opposing the referendum on his truck.
Fascinating storyline of the Maine race down the line could be the candidacy of @TiffanyBond (I). Her voters made the difference in Poliquin’s defeat last year via Maine’s new ranked-choice voting, with enough choosing Jared Golden as their 2nd choice.
Ranked choice voting makes it harder for someone to win with minority support - like former Maine Governor Paul LePage, who won with 38% his first time around boston.com/news/politics/…
Bond also has a novel approach to campaigning - urging people to give to worthy causes in Maine in lieu of traditional fundraising.
Health care also a key issue in the Maine Senate race. D rivals attacking Collins for her vote for the tax law’s repeal of the individual mandate penalty tax, which GOP AGs backed by Trump are using to try and overturn the ACA in its entirety over Collins’ objections.
Gideon touting her role pushing through legislation enshrining ACA pre-ex protections etc in state law. Her attack on eliminating mandate though opens her to counterattack because mandate itself has never been super-duper popular.
Collins has sent letters to Barr objecting to the lawsuit to no avail and along with many of her colleagues says there was no legislative intent to nuke the ACA as part of the tax bill.
The lawsuit’s arguably reason No. 1 why Manchin - who backs Collins - is still in the Senate.
I also asked Collins about the repeated attacks on her deal with Mitch McConnell for a vote on a bill shoring up the ACA in return for her tax bill vote.
Susan Collins told me as she has before that McConnell kept his word to her; she got her vote. But, Republicans added a provision tying the Hyde amendment to the ACA, and Democrats said no.

Collins still blames Patty Murray for the bill’s failure, not McConnell.
I also asked Susan Collins about folks attacking her for blaming “dark money” groups in part for her falling polls given she was deciding vote to kill the Disclose Act in 2010. She said she’s always been for disclosure but voted no because of exemptions for unions, the NRA etc
But if she had voted yes, the big donors to the dark money groups attacking her would have to be disclosed and therefore it wouldn’t really be “dark money” any more.

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More from @StevenTDennis

Jul 14
Two years ago, Congress considered banning 18-20 year-olds from buying AR-15s and other semi-automatic rifles after the Uvalde massacre, and some Republicans were briefly open to doing so but ultimately blocked including a ban in the bipartisan gun bill signed by Biden.
Then-Florida Governor Rick Scott signed a law raising the age to buy guns in his state to 21 after the Parkland massacre, but then opposed doing the same for the nation as a US Senator. He told reporters it was easier to do it at the state level.
McConnell actually enacted a law one day to raise the age to buy cigarettes to 21. But he didn't want to talk two years ago about a proposal to raise the age for buying rifles.
Read 5 tweets
Jun 7
Soaring cost estimates for extending Trump tax cuts set up a crucial 2025 fight:
*CBO puts tab at $4.6 Trillion over next decade
*Fight comes with US debt far higher than 2017, interest costs ballooning & Social Security cliff looming...
w/@chrisjcondon
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
*Trump wants more tax cuts, along with massive new tariffs — aka a tax on imports — that would raise consumer prices but offset at least some of the cost.
*Biden wants to extend breaks <$400K a year paired with higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy.
If past is prologue, Congress will again play Santa Claus. With a few exceptions, Congress has repeatedly increased spending and cut taxes since 2001.
Read 7 tweets
May 4
Tonight's #FridayNightZillow is kicking off with a *House of the Year* contender. It's amazeballs! We just need to crowdfund $2.795M. We get 9,825 square feet of sheer madness on 36 acres in gorgeous Plymouth, Minnesota! I love it!!! INSANE sinks, WEIRD art, WILD ceilings, AMAZING kitchen, views, colors galore, a pond, a party shower and much, MUCH more. Several of you sent me this gem! 🧵
zillow.com/homedetails/51…Image
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This is a Sink! #SinkZillow #FridayNightZillow Image
This is a Sink! #SinkZillow #FridayNightZillow #OMG Image
Read 18 tweets
Apr 6
Three words: OLD. JAIL. INN. Time to retire and move to Rockville, Indiana! Just $445K buys us 10BRs, 6BAs, and a licensed wine bar in the basement! Welcome to #FridayNightZillow! Follow along for an epic collection of funky homes. zillow.com/homedetails/12…



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"What happens in jail stays in jail" lol. Jail-bar pillows are a nice touch. #FridayNightZillow


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One of the scarier things I've seen on Zillow. Let's hope this is a prop and not an actual electric chair. #FridayNightZillow Image
Read 12 tweets
Mar 27
Ozempic can be produced for less than $5 a month, a new study found, but Danish company Novo Nordisk charges Americans $968.52. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Bernie Sanders insisting the company charge Americans no more than it charges Canadians for the same drug.
Ozempic pricing page. Many people get discounts on this price, or have insurance companies (ie premiums) or taxpayers pay the bill. novopricing.com/ozempic.html
Read 6 tweets
Mar 1
McConnell helped nix:
Roe
Campaign finance reform
Individual mandate
Medicare dental & vision
Dream Act
$35 insulin cap
Minimum wage hike
Flag burning amendment
Making Election Day a holiday
Public option
SCOTUS filibuster
Pro Act
1/6 Commission
Oil export ban
Cap&trade
Tax hikes
Vast majority of laws since 2007 have had either the acquiescence of McConnell or his outright support, with notable exceptions, like the Affordable Care Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, Obama stimulus, Biden Covid relief, Dodd-Frank, Lilly Ledbetter, USA Freedom Act, Paygo.
One way to look at McConnell is that he has often had the role of editor of Congress. Empowered by the filibuster and his conference, he had a key veto point in Washington; spending, taxing and legislating had to pass through his filter.
Read 7 tweets

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