In July 2017, Republican Sen. Susan Collins made a routine trip home, as she’d done countless times during her lengthy congressional career. But this time her arrival was quite a bit different: After walking into the terminal at Bangor International Airport, the senator was greeted with spontaneous applause.
There was no great mystery as to why: Collins had just voted to derail the Republican Party’s far-right health care gambit, and relieved Mainers apparently wanted to show their appreciation for her having done the right thing to protect the public from her own party’s agenda.
Collins, receiving the kind of outpouring of support most members of Congress can only dream of, described the scene as “amazing.”
Eight years later, the GOP incumbent is facing a very different kind of public reception in her home state. NBC News reported:
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, was heckled and drowned out at times by demonstrators at a ribbon-cutting ceremony in her home state Tuesday, the latest in a series of confrontations between protesters and members of Congress. ‘Shame! Shame! Shame!’ protesters yelled at Collins as she cut the ribbon to mark the completion of the long-running Route 1 construction project in Searsport.
“Could you please just listen, for just one …” Collins said at one point, before she was interrupted again. “We’d like you to listen!” one of the demonstrators yelled, while another chastised Collins for not holding any town halls with constituents.
Given that the senator is reportedly planning to seek another term next year, dispensing with an earlier term-limit pledge, this probably wasn’t encouraging.
Collins’ detractors raised a variety of points, though at this specific event, a local report from the Midcoast Villager noted, “Detractors questioned Collins’ role in celebrating new spending while President Donald Trump and her fellow Republicans in Congress push through federal budget cuts to health care, food assistance and other services.”
The senator has argued that when her party’s far-right megabill recently came to the Senate floor, she voted against it. That’s true. But it’s also true that when the inaptly named One Big Beautiful Bill Act needed to clear a key procedural hurdle a few days earlier, which allowed senators to advance the radical legislation, Collins voted with her party and the megabill’s proponents — even as some other Senate Republicans sided with the package’s Democratic opponents.
Some of her constituents appear to have noticed.
The University of New Hampshire and the American Association of Public Opinion Research released a statewide poll in April that found 71% of Mainers don’t believe Collins deserves to be re-elected. Watch this space.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com