Less Than 1% of Donations to Susan Collins Came From Her Home State This Year

Less than 1 percent of the more than $1.1 million raised by Republican Maine Senator Susan Collins in her re-election bid this year has come from residents in her state, Roll Call reports.

Collins, considered one of the most vulnerable Republicans facing re-election in 2020, has raised just $9,200 from 15 Maine residents in the first three months of this year. Thirteen of those Maine residents have $200 or more. The rest of the $1.1 million she has raised has come from out of state after she sparked controversy by supporting President Trump’s Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh despite allegations of sexual misconduct in college.

By comparison, Collins raised $52,000 from 46 Maine donations in the first three months of 2013 during her last re-election bid. At that point, 59 percent of her donations had come from out of state.

Nearly 70 percent of all money raised over her last two re-election bids came from out of state.

“Collins raised about $15,000 in unitemized contributions during the first three months of 2019, but campaigns are not required to disclose the identity of those donors to the Federal Election Commission,” Roll Call noted. “It’s likely that more Mainers are part of that pool of donors giving $200 or less.”

Collins faces well-funded non-existent opponent:

“Democrats, who don’t yet have a candidate in this race, will likely attack the four-term senator for being propped up by outside money. But their eventual nominee will be the beneficiary of a nearly $3.8 million and growing Crowdpac fund set up after Collins voted for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh last year,” Roll Call reported. “Republicans are likely to point to the Crowdpac fund to argue that any Democratic challenger would be backed by liberal, out-of-state money.”

Polling shows that Collins is still popular in Maine and she won her last re-election by 37 points.

But Collins is clearly working hard to avoid being another Republican casualty in the Trump era. She has already raised $4.4 million for her re-election bid, compared to $1.5 million at this point six years ago, and has already spent $343,000, compared to $64,000 at this point six years ago.

 

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