Senator Collins is paying the political cost for not standing up to Donald Trump

Maine Writer: Although Senator Collins is spending a lot of money by speaking directly to voters in her re-election political ads, these messages are not improving her public opinion poll numbers. None of her ads claim she is a Republican candidate running for re-election.  Instead, they claim that she is independent (with a lower case "i"). Her positive messages do not explain how her right wing partisan behavior would change, if she were to be re-elected.  I've known Senator Collins to be a nice person, but her politics have become stridently partisan over the years, in spite of Maine's moderately Democratic political demographics.

https://www.suitupmaine.org/case-against-collins/

Meanwhile, the Bangor Daily News reported that Senator Collins Democratic challenger Sara Gideon leapfroged Susan Collins in fundraising ahead of 2020 US Senate race.

Echo article published in The Hill by John Bowden and the Bangor Daily News by Jessica Piper.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins (R) has seen a dip in her approval rating statewide, according to a new poll.

The Maine senator continues to be a top target for Democrats in the fall.  A survey released Monday by the Bangor Daily News found that just 37 percent of voters in the state approve of the job she has done as senator, compared with 52 percent who said they disapproved.

That represents a drop of 5 percentage points for Collins's approval rating since a previous BDN/Critical Insights poll in the fall, when Collins was supported by 42 percent of voters in the state. 

Her approval rating had hovered around that level for much of 2019, rising only one point between the firm's polls in the spring and fall.

Other political figures in the state fared better than Collins in the poll: Gov. Janet Mills (D) saw her approval rating rise from 47 points last fall to 60 points in the latest BDN/Critical Insights poll, while Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) remained popular with the support of 59 percent of voters.

Maine residents now overwhelmingly expect the economy to worsen in the months ahead, according to the survey, with 57 percent of voters saying they expect the economy to be in worse shape next year, up from 32 percent in the fall.

The BDN/Critical Insights poll surveyed 596 registered voters in Maine. Further polling information was not immediately available, and Critical Insights pollsters did not immediately return a request for comment.