After losing her Maine Senate seat, Susan Collins has said a “Trump tsunami” swept her from office and complained that voters overlooked her breaks with the president. Six years earlier, she was assuring Americans that Donald Trump had learned his lesson from impeachment.
The Republican senator, first elected in 1996, lost her bid for a sixth term to Democrat Troy Jackson in the 3 November 2026 midterm elections. Jackson won roughly 53% of the vote, according to Associated Press reporting, ending Collins’s nearly 30 years representing Maine in Washington.
In a post-election interview with The New York Times, Collins argued that her opposition to Trump on major decisions had not been recognised. Her remarks have subsequently been portrayed by some outlets as an attack on her own voters. But what did she actually say, and how does that compare with her record?
What Collins said after losing
Collins described herself as having been caught up in a “Trump tsunami” and pointed to her vote to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial in February 2021. In the interview, subsequently reported by the Bangor Daily News and Boston.com, she expressed frustration with the electorate’s response.
“What bigger break could there be? It is never enough. I want results and they want angry rhetoric.”
Those words help explain the headlines accusing Collins of criticising voters. They do not amount to a direct insult of every person who voted against her. Her argument was that voters did not give sufficient weight to her independence and legislative achievements.
Collins also recounted a conversation with a longtime supporter who reportedly liked her personally but wanted to send a message to Trump through her Senate vote. Her campaign had repeatedly emphasised her position as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the funding she had helped secure for projects in Maine.
Six years earlier: Trump had “learned” from impeachment
The contrast with Collins’s comments on 4 February 2020 is particularly striking. As Trump faced the end of his first impeachment trial, CBS News anchor Norah O’Donnell asked Collins whether she was confident he would not seek foreign help in an election again.
“I believe that the president has learned from this case.”
Collins argued that impeachment itself was a major sanction and said Trump would be more cautious in future. She also called his request for Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden improper, but maintained that the conduct did not meet the constitutional threshold for removal from office.
The interview was broadcast by CBS News, which published the transcript. The network’s original video is below.
Watch the original CBS Evening News interview on YouTube if the player does not load.
The impeachment record: two very different votes
Collins voted to acquit Trump in February 2020. After the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, she voted to convict him in his second trial, joining six other Republicans. The Senate did not reach the two-thirds majority required for conviction.
Both facts matter. It would be inaccurate to say Collins always defended Trump, just as it would be misleading to present her as someone who consistently opposed his agenda.
Why her wider voting record mattered
One of the campaign’s persistent arguments concerned Collins’s 2018 vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court. Kavanaugh subsequently joined the majority that overturned Roe v Wade in 2022. Jackson’s campaign cited that vote to challenge her claim of independence, while Collins defended her decision.
Collins could also point to genuine breaks with Trump: she opposed efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017, voted for his conviction in 2021 and supported measures to curtail US hostilities against Iran in 2026. Her April 2026 statement on war powers set out her position.
Conversely, critics highlighted her support for a substantial immigration enforcement funding package and her confirmation votes for Trump nominees. Voters were being asked to assess the whole record, rather than any single break or endorsement.
Was Maine voting against Trump?
There is evidence that opposition to the president influenced the wider election, although it cannot explain every individual ballot. In an October 2026 Marist poll, 41% of Maine likely voters said their congressional vote was a vote against Trump. Another 42% said Trump was not much of a factor, while 16% described their vote as supporting him.
That survey also found Jackson at 49% and Collins at 47% among likely voters, within its reported margin of error. It was taken before election day and should not be treated as a measurement of why every Maine voter chose one candidate or the other.
Jackson, a former Maine Senate president, campaigned on the cost of living, healthcare and workers’ rights. He argued that Collins had not done enough to resist the president. She countered that her long service, bipartisan work and ability to direct federal resources to Maine provided tangible benefits.
Did Collins attack the people who voted her out?
The documented remarks support a narrower conclusion: Collins expressed disappointment with voters who, in her view, prioritised sending a political message over her record. The claim that she attacked all her own voters is an interpretation of those comments, not something she explicitly said.
There is nevertheless a revealing tension between the two moments. In 2020, Collins believed impeachment had taught Trump a lesson. In 2026, she argued that opposition to Trump had cost her the job she had held for three decades.
The election result establishes that Maine chose a new senator. The reasons behind that choice are more complex, and voters could reasonably weigh her cooperation with Trump, her opposition to him and her work for Maine differently.
