{UAH} DEMOCRATS TARGETTING SUSAN COLLINS FLOPS

Defying polls, Republican Susan Collins wins Maine Senate race

by Susan Ferrechio, Chief Congressional Correspondent | 

 

 November 04, 2020 11:15 AM

 

Republican Susan Collins beat back Democratic challenger Sara Gideon and defied all polling to win a fifth term representing Maine in the U.S. Senate.

Collins announced Wednesday that Gideon, Maine's House speaker, called to concede, ending the most expensive Senate race in the state's history.

Collins outperformed months of polling that all showed her consistently trailing Gideon by several points. Collins, as she has in past races, outperformed the top of the ticket, where Democrat Joe Biden has won three of the state's four electoral votes.

As of Wednesday afternoon Collins was leading Gideon 51% to 42.4%, with 85% of votes counted.

Collins prevailed with more than 50% of the vote, avoiding a “ranked-choice” runoff that Maine enacted for races where neither candidate wins more than half of the vote. The ranked-choice process would have reallocated the votes won by two additional Senate candidates based on the second choice marked on the ballot by those voters.

The Collins win makes it much more likely the Senate will remain in GOP hands. Collins was among a handful of GOP seats Democrats hoped to flip to win back the Senate majority. Democrats would have to win four GOP seats to take over the Senate. So far, they have netted just one seat.

Collins ran as an independent GOP centrist who has been willing to break with Trump and has the seniority to bring services and federal dollars to Mainers.

Gideon is the state legislature’s Democratic House speaker and had worked to tie Collins with both Trump and the Senate GOP majority, which has blocked House Democratic initiatives and sought to repeal Obamacare.

Collins, the only New England Republican left in Congress, survived a massive influx of outside spending on behalf of Gideon.

Gideon, 48, outraised Collins by about $31 million and has outspent the Collins campaign by nearly $7 million in the most recent quarter, according to the Bangor Daily News. Overall, more than $170 million has been spent on the race, and the final number could approach $200 million, GOP campaign aides said.

Out-of-state liberal organizations had dumped money into the race eager to unseat Collins since 2018 when she voted to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Collins broke with Trump by opposing the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Collins sided with Democrats who said it was too close to the election to confirm a new justice. She also worked to author and pass a critical loan program that has helped small businesses in Maine survive the economic downturn brought on by the coronavirus.

This isn’t the first time Collins outperformed her party on the top of the ticket.

In 2008, Collins beat Democratic challenger Tom Allen by 33 percentage points, even though President Barack Obama trounced Republican Sen. John McCain by a nearly 18-point margin.

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