Maine Democrats want to beat Susan Collins. Step one? Finding a challenger.

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In 2020, Susan Collins looked like an endangered species.

Collins, Maine’s senior senator, was the last Republican member of Congress from New England. Donald Trump was in the White House. Collins, a moderate, had broken with him on major legislation. She faced a well-funded Democratic challenger. And polls suggested that after decades in office, she might actually lose.

Yet Collins ended up winning by nearly 9 points — even as Trump lost Maine to Joe Biden by a similar margin.

Many of the same dynamics still pertain ahead of Collins’s expected run for a sixth term next year. Her staying power seems to have made prominent Maine Democrats wary of challenging her and Maine Republicans content with a senator who sometimes defies Trump. Today’s newsletter explains Collins’s strengths and potential weaknesses.

Collins, first elected in 1996, has survived all kinds of political environments. She’s won in good years for Democrats, like 2008, and in good years for Republicans, like 2014. She’s won after outspending her opponent (2002) and after her opponent outspent her (2020). She’s won under presidents of both parties (Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump), in midterm and presidential elections alike.

That’s an intimidating record. It may help explain why, even as several high-profile Maine Democrats angle to run for governor next year, no major challenger has yet announced against Collins. (Jordan Wood, a 35-year-old staffer for a former California congresswoman, and a candidate who briefly ran for Senate last year are the only declared contenders so far.)

Senator and governor are different jobs, and seeking an open seat — Governor Janet Mills, a Democrat, is term-limited — is easier. But at least one Maine Democrat who wanted to be a senator in the past — Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who lost to Collins by 37 points in 2014 — is running for governor instead.

Charlie Dingman, chair of the Maine Democratic Party, argues that it’s still early and that challengers will emerge. “I’m aware of and have been talking with a number of folks in the Democratic Party in Maine who are very interested in the opportunity and are exploring it,” he said, declining to name names. “I expect we’ll have a very strong field.”

The most eagerly anticipated entrant may be Mills, 77, who easily won re-election in 2022 and gained national attention when she clashed with Trump earlier this year over transgender athletes. Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, has reportedly talked with her about running. Yet Mills sounds noncommittal.

Chellie Pingree, a US representative who lost to Collins in 2002, sounded similarly undecided when asked about a rematch last November. The state’s other representative — Jared Golden, a fourth-term Democratic moderate — used to work for Collins and seems unlikely to challenge his old boss. Some think he may seek the governorship instead.

Even if Democrats do field a strong challenger, Collins has at least three advantages going for her this year.

One is experience. Nearly 30 years in office have bred a deep connection to voters in a small state where personal touch can transcend partisanship. “It’s the most successful political machine the state of Maine has ever seen,” said Lance Dutson, a strategist who worked on Collins’s past three campaigns.

Another, ironically, is Maine’s blue lean. In 2020, despite having voted to block Trump’s repeal of the Affordable Care Act, Collins faced only token primary opposition — an acknowledgment that she may be the best Maine Republicans can get.

“Collins is somebody that votes with Republicans more than she doesn’t vote with Republicans, supports the Trump administration more than she doesn’t support the Trump administration,” said Nicholas Jacobs, a political scientist at Colby College in Waterville. As other GOP senators face serious threats from more Trump-aligned challengers, no similar movement has yet emerged against Collins.

Collins’s third advantage may be plausible deniability. She chairs the Senate appropriations committee, giving her a powerful perch to break from Trump and other Republicans over tax policy and government funding if she chooses. “It’s a chance to prove her independence,” Jacobs said.

Still, Collins may yet end up with a real race on her hands.

Past polls have underestimated her, but recent surveys find her approval rating underwater and that most Mainers feel she doesn’t deserve another term. That could be because Maine has become a target in Trump’s second term. His administration has sued Maine over trans athletes and tried to withhold federal funding. (Collins said her state should get funding but that Trump was right to scrutinize its gender policies. A spokesperson for her campaign called it “absurd to be polling at this point in the cycle.”)

Next year’s electorate may also complicate her path. Split-ticket voters who backed a Democrat for president and Collins for Senate helped her win in 2008 and 2020. But voters who increasingly support Democrats — whiter, older, and more educated — have been more likely to turn out in recent midterms. That means Collins may face a substantially bluer electorate than in prior cycles.

Her record also offers Democrats plenty to criticize. Collins voted to confirm four of the six Supreme Court justices who struck down Roe v. Wade and controversial Trump nominees like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Russell Vought, an architect of Project 2025.

For now, Maine Democrats’ best recruiting pitch may be that past isn’t necessarily prologue. “We are seeing such an extraordinary eagerness on the part of the president to dismantle our government wholesale and to do so in a lawless fashion,” Dingman, the state party chair, said. “I just don’t believe that the results of an election in a past cycle are going to discourage people from taking on that challenge.”

🧩 4 Across: Stand up to | 🌤️ 59º More sunshine

Boston and Massachusetts

• Karen Read trial: A police investigator faced sharp questioning about his colleague’s offensive texts about Read. Here’s what else happened.
• Clashing rights: A Roxbury judge said she’d have to remove her niqab, a religious headscarf, to testify in a case that pitted religious freedom against due process. Then it went to the state’s highest court.
• Artists in residence: A Cambridge skatepark is embracing graffiti.
• Tragedy: A Bentley University senior died after falling from a balcony on a trip to the Bahamas.

Trump administration

• Three-country tour: Trump defended his administration’s plan to accept a luxury jet from Qatar to use as Air Force One. He’s visiting Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates this week.
• Israel-Hamas war: After speaking with Trump, Israel’s prime minister will send negotiators to ceasefire talks with Hamas. As promised, Hamas released an Israeli-American hostage. (Times of Israel)
• Drug costs: Trump signed an executive order meant to lower pharmaceutical prices. But big questions, like whether the order is legal and how it would work, remain unanswered. (STAT)
• Justice delayed: Black students who say classmates called them racial slurs and others who lodged civil rights complaints with the Education Department fear Trump’s cuts to the agency will doom their cases.
• Come one, come some: The US welcomed 59 white South Africans as refugees. Trump, who has shut down refugee admissions from Afghanistan, Sudan, and other countries, claims the South Africans face racial discrimination. (NBC)
• What’s that spell? Republicans’ tax bill contains a provision that would put $1,000 for newborn babies into a “money account for growth and advancement,” or MAGA. (Semafor)

The Nation and the World

• NBA on NBC: Michael Jordan is joining the network as a special contributor. (AP)
• Diddy trial: Witnesses began testifying in Sean Combs’ federal sex-trafficking trial in New York City. (NY Post)

By Teresa Hanafin

🤧 Pollen power: It’s not bad enough that allergy season is starting about 20 days earlier than it used to. It’s also lasting longer and is more intense. Gesundheit.

🦭 Seal the deal: The state is trying once again to redesign the Massachusetts state seal. I vote for a Norman Rockwell-style painting of a Boston terrier sitting on Plymouth Rock eating a Tollhouse cookie while a chickadee perches on its head. (WBUR)

📺 Summer TV: “The Better Sister,” “The Waterfront,” “Long Story Short,” and more new shows to keep you entertained.

🍃 From beer to bud: Lots of Americans are drinking less alcohol. “Oh, really?” said THC beverage makers. (CNN)

💦 You(th) decide: Mayor Michelle Wu wants Boston youths to pick which one of seven projects will get $1 million from the city. Community theater? Water bubblahs everywhere? Better crosswalks? (Youth Lead the Change)

📫 Miss Conduct: How to get your summer cottage guests to pay for their own groceries. And is it icky to include ultrasound images with pregnancy announcements?

💿 Kendrick kicked it: Kendrick Lamar and SZA performed at a sold-out Gillette stadium last night. Here’s the setlist and other highlights.

🎞️ Frenzy in France: The Cannes Film Festival begins today, with movie premieres and directorial debuts and suspense over who and what will take home awards. (Rolling Stone)

🍞 Worldly fare: In honor of World Baking Day, the folks at Milk Street offer recipes for Greek olive bread and mandelbrot, a Jewish cookie similar to biscotti.

🗺️ Gone but not forgotten: The Leventhal Map Center at the BPL is dipping into its vault Friday for a two-hour display of maps of cities, countries, and empires that no longer exist. Spooky. (Leventhal Center)

Thanks for reading Starting Point.

This newsletter was edited by Teresa Hanafin and produced by Diamond Naga Siu and Ryan Orlecki.

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Ian Prasad Philbrick can be reached at ian.philbrick@globe.com.