Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is in the midst of another tough reelection fight. Polls show her trailing Democratic nominee Graham Platner despite his recent scandals. Voter antipathy toward incumbents disadvantages a 73-year-old seeking a sixth term. On top of all that, Collins is also facing the voters for the first time since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Collins played a critical role in that ruling by having voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the high court.
Collins has had four years to prepare an answer for the majority of Mainers who support abortion rights. Instead, she just reminded voters that she has no regrets.
It may seem surprising that Collins wouldn’t vote differently now on a nominee that she admits “misled” her.
In late 2018, Kavanaugh squeaked through the Senate by a confirmation vote of 50-48, after telling Collins that he viewed Roe as “settled precedent.” In a speech on the Senate floor, Collins even accused people of being alarmist about the fate of abortion rights: “Suffice it to say, prominent advocacy groups have been wrong” before, she said in 2018. Within four years, Kavanaugh joined the majority opinion that ended the federal right to abortion.
On Friday, a reporter from the Portland Press Herald asked Collins “whether you regret that vote.” Collins was at first defiant: “I do not regret that vote.” Then, as often happens with Collins, came the caveats: “I do disagree with Justice Kavanaugh’s vote. I would point out that in that decision several Supreme Court justices whom I supported voted the other way. That includes Justice Sotomayor, Justice Elena Kagan, Justice Jackson.”
In fact, Ketanji Brown Jackson didn’t hear the case; she joined the court right after that term ended. And though Collins did vote to confirm Justices Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, her answer elides the fact that, along with Kavanaugh, she also supported the confirmations of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito and John Roberts — four of the six justices in the majority on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Even Collins’ vote against Amy Coney Barrett in October 2020, just days before Collins faced the voters, came after it was clear that Barrett had enough support to be confirmed. (Justice Clarence Thomas joined the court in 1991, several years before Collins was first elected to the Senate.)
It may seem surprising that Collins wouldn’t vote differently now on a nominee that she admits “misled” her. But that’s because, as a closer look at Collins’ record on judicial nominees shows, she would do it all over again if she had the chance. In Donald Trump’s second term alone, Collins has confirmed at least 17 anti-abortion judges to lifetime seats, any one of whom could tee up the next case that takes the entire country backwards on abortion, birth control and more.
In 2017, during Trump’s first term, Collins voted to confirm Judge James Ho to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. Last month, Justice Thomas cited a concurrence from Ho claiming that the federal Comstock Act prohibits telehealth prescriptions of mifepristone nationwide. Thankfully, that citation was in a dissent, but if the view shared by Thomas and Ho becomes the law of the land — thanks either to the courts or the Food and Drug Administration — it would inordinately impact rural communities in Maine. An expansive interpretation of Comstock could ban all abortions nationwide. And should there be a vacancy on the Supreme Court during this Trump term, Ho is also considered a strong contender to fill the seat.
Trump’s second term unquestionably has impacted reproductive health care in Maine.
In her answer Friday, Collins admitted she was “disappointed” with the Dobbs decision but said that “it has not had an impact on the state of Maine in that Maine actually expanded its law,” referring to a 2023 law that protects abortions done later in pregnancy for medical reasons. But Trump’s second term unquestionably has impacted reproductive health care in Maine.
Last year, Trump signed a budget law that “defunded” large abortion providers by kicking them out of the Medicaid program. Although Collins ultimately voted against the bill, she cast a key vote to advance it during interim steps. Because Senate procedure prevented the law from targeting Planned Parenthood by name, it instead “defunded” abortion providers that received more than $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements annually. That rubric ensnared Maine Family Planning, which halted primary care services to make up for the deficit.
In response, Maine lawmakers have spent millions of dollars to shore up its family planning network. The state allocated $6 million in 2025, plus $2 million this year and $5 million annually starting in 2027. That’s money that could have been spent elsewhere. Meanwhile, Trump’s Health and Human Services Department is investigating Maine and 12 other states over their laws requiring insurance coverage of abortion care.
Beyond the impacts in the Pine Tree state, it’s frankly insulting for Collins to suggest that everything’s fine since abortion is still legal — for now. People in Maine have friends and loved ones who live elsewhere, and Mainers can read the stories about people dying from the early abortion bans in effect in 20 states. The voters of Maine deserve a better answer from Collins. And if they don’t get one, perhaps they’ll vote for a new senator instead.
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