U.S. Sen. Susan Collins told reporters on Thursday that she plans to run in 2026 for a sixth term that would make her the longest-serving senator in Maine history.
Collins, a centrist Republican, is set for two years in the spotlight. She is in line to lead the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee beginning next year, and former President Donald Trump’s return to the White House is already prompting many charged political questions for her as she tries to hold her seat in a firmly Democratic state.
The senator told reporters that she plans to run for a sixth term. They were Collins’ clearest comments to that effect in the last few years, although she filed to run for reelection one day after her 2020 victory in a heavily contested race against Democrat Sara Gideon. No Maine senator has ever served more than five terms in that chamber.
“I’m focused on the appropriations process, not elections right now, but my intention is to run,” she said, according to the Washington Examiner.
Collins has consistently been the most liberal Republican in the Senate on economic and other issues, according to VoteView. But her political profile during Trump’s first term in the White House sharply changed. In late 2015, one poll gave her 78 percent approval in Maine. She has been mired in the 40s in recent surveys from Morning Consult.
The major development between now and then was Collins’ 2018 vote for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, which set off the Democratic challenge against her two years later. Despite trailing in every poll against Gideon, she won convincingly by rallying a Republican base that had long been skeptical of her while keeping significant swing support.
Trump could have her walking a similar tightrope in two years. She was one of six Republicans who voted to convict him on a Democratic impeachment charge of inciting the Capitol riots of Jan. 6, 2021. She endorsed former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in this year’s Maine primaries and said she would write in Haley’s name for president in the November election.
Trump has begun rolling out a set of unorthodox Cabinet nominees, some of whom will struggle to win confirmation in the Senate controlled by a 54-vote Republican majority. They include former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, the attorney general pick who faced a sex trafficking investigation by the Department of Justice that resulted in no charges.
Collins said Wednesday that she was “shocked” by the pick, echoing other Republicans who took a dim view of Gaetz. Yet Trump allies have threatened primary challenges for those who derail the president-elect’s plans. Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville told Fox News that members who get in the way will face efforts to “get you out of the Senate.”
With her victory in 2020, Collins cemented herself as one of the top electoral politicians in recent Maine history. The state will still be a target for Senate Democrats looking to recapture a majority, although many top prospective candidates could elect to run in the open-seat governor’s race that year rather than face an entrenched incumbent like Collins.
