Susan Collins lost her Senate seat on Tuesday after three decades. The next day, she told The New York Times whose fault it was.

"I was caught up in the Trump tsunami that swept away many incumbent Republican senators who have served their states well for many years and really care about our country," Collins said.

Then she made the case that she had done everything a Republican could do to stand apart from him.

"Everybody ignores the fact that I voted to convict him in the second impeachment trial," she said. "What bigger break could there be? It is never enough. I want results and they want angry rhetoric."

She didn't say who "they" are in what's been reported. The Daily Beast took it as a swipe at her own voters. Either way, she has asked a fair question. What bigger break could there be? We can answer it.

The break she's proudest of

Collins did vote to convict Trump in February 2021. It was a real vote, and she was one of only seven Republicans who cast it.

It also could not have changed anything. The final count was 57 guilty to 43 not guilty, and it took 67 to convict. The vote fell 10 short. Trump had already left office.

A bigger break would have been one that stopped something.

When her vote alone could decide

The Bangor Daily News counted all 10,076 votes of her career and pulled out the ones where her vote alone would have changed the result.

There's a fair point here, and it belongs up front. She cast 56 of those deciding votes against her own party, the most of any senator over her time in office. Four of them came during this Trump term. So it isn't true that she has never broken with Republicans when it counted.

But look at where the 200 deciding votes of her career went. 144 of them helped her party. And on Trump's nominees, the count the Maine Democratic Party highlighted from that data is 19 deciding votes to confirm and not one against.

One political analyst gave the Bangor Daily News the name for the other kind of vote. Some votes by vulnerable members of both parties, Kyle Kondik said, "end up being hall passes, where somebody's vote is not actually needed."

The record, one vote at a time

Brett Kavanaugh. Collins voted to confirm him in a 50–48 vote, and he later helped overturn abortion rights. The Globe reports she said during this campaign that she didn't regret it. She told Maine voters this summer she'd do it again.

Trump's budget bill. On June 28, 2025, she voted yes on the motion that brought the bill to the Senate floor. It passed 51 to 49, and if she and one more Republican had voted no, the bill could have been stopped there. Days later, she voted no on final passage. It passed anyway, and her no was the 50th vote against, one short of stopping it. Her campaign then ran an ad saying she stood up for Maine on Medicaid.

The Iran war. The Globe credits her with voting nine times to end it. But Collins voted against the first five attempts, from March 4 through April 22. She broke ranks on a procedural vote on April 28, and her first yes on a resolution came on April 30, as the 60-day deadline approached. It failed 47 to 50. She did keep voting yes after that, and one later vote failed by a single vote. The war kept going.

ICE. In June, she voted for about $70 billion in immigration enforcement money and against an amendment setting aside $300 million for body cameras. The Globe says that vote became a focal point for some voters. After an ICE agent killed a young father in Biddeford, she announced cameras were coming and took the credit.

Todd Blanche. She voted to confirm him as deputy attorney general in March 2025. She announced her no on his next job hours after the two Republicans with real leverage let him through committee.

What voters told her

Mainers didn't need a spreadsheet for this. The Daily Beast reports that Collins herself told the Times about a longtime supporter who said she loved her but couldn't vote for her this time. It was the only way, the woman said, to send a message to Trump.

That is a voter who wanted to send a message to Trump, and in that story, she didn't ask for angry rhetoric.

Collins's campaign manager, Steve Abbott, had a different complaint. He said all the federal money she brought home was "an opportunity that the state has walked away from." Collins compared herself to Margaret Chase Smith, the Maine senator who stood up to Joe McCarthy.

Collins said the best comparison is that they each lost their last Senate race. Mainers gave their answer on her record on Tuesday.

What the record shows

After losing, Susan Collins blamed a "Trump tsunami" and pointed to her vote to convict Trump, which fell 10 short of the 67 needed. She did cast 56 deciding votes against her party over her career, four of them in this Trump term. But the Maine Democratic Party counts 19 deciding votes to confirm Trump nominees and none against. She voted to bring Trump's budget bill to the floor, then voted no on a final vote it still won, voted against the first five attempts to end the Iran war, and voted for about $70 billion for immigration enforcement.

Source

Susan Collins gave her first interview after a shocking Senate loss. These are the three big takeaways. — Kaitlin Lewis, The Boston Globe