Democrat Sara Gideon, speaker of Maine's House of Representatives, is running against Republican Sen. Susan Collins, one of the most vulnerable members of Mitch McConnell's conference this cycle.
"Susan Collins has been in the Senate for 22 years," Gideon says in her announcement video. "And at one point, maybe she was different from some of the other folks in Washington. But she doesn't seem that way anymore." Gideon judiciously uses Donald Trump and McConnell in the video. She includes a snippet of Trump thanking Collins for her vote on the $1.5 trillion tax scam. She references the huge contributions Collins has received from drug companies and the insurance industry, with a clip of McConnell smirking, "Senator Collins will be well funded, I can assure you."
The capper is Collins' vote to put Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, showing a headline from the Bangor Daily News that notes Collins’ record-setting fundraising on her vote. That vote "may be paying off for her," Gideon says, "but it's put women's control over their own health care decisions in extreme jeopardy."
Gideon has served seven years in the state legislature, after previously serving on the Freeport Town Council, a seat town leaders tried to recruit her husband for but which she decided she wanted. She doesn't leave former Republican Gov. Paul LePage out of the litany of Republicans with which Collins has aligned herself, and highlights her successful fights against him. "When someone tries to get in the way," Gideon says, "or get me to back down, I stand up to them." A not-so-subtle reminder that the supposedly once-independent Collins is now in the thrall of Republicans such as Trump and McConnell.
Should Gideon emerge from the primary against several other Democrats running for the nomination, she'll have millions at her disposal from the Crowdpac funding efforts by grassroots organizations banded together to defeat Collins. That includes the Daily Kos nominee fund, dedicated to ending Mitch McConnell's Senate majority. No seat would be more satisfying to flip than this one.
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