Happy Friday! Sen. Susan Collins's approval rating in Maine has dropped 17 points since last spring in the biannual tracking poll Critical Insights conducts in Maine. S.E.V.E.N.T.E.E.N. And 10 points since last fall.
In what is "the longest-running consistently-administered tracking survey in the Northeast," Collins dropped from a 58% approval a year ago, to 51% last fall, to 41% this spring. She also only gets a 46% approval rating among Republicans, and 31% from Democrats. In the words of the polling memo, "Approval of Senator Collins's job performance has declined dramatically since last fall, reaching a new low." She has't been underwater in this poll ever before (her disapproval is 42%).
Bob Domine, president of Critical Insights, says "If I had to speculate on a single factor underlying this slip in Collin's approval rating, it would be her pivotal vote in Brett Kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court. Her approval was both strong and steady prior to her vote last fall, and it has continued to slip since then." The president* she took that vote for, Donald Trump, has a 58% disapproval in the state, with just 34% approving.
So she can at least point to the fact that she's more popular than Trump, except that she can't. She will need every one of the Republicans who are sticking with him to support her and given her previous history as someone who courted Democrats, they'll look on that with skepticism. She's going to have to count on pure partisan tribalism in 2020, and she's going to have to keep taking votes with Trump to do it. That'll drive down her support among those Democrats she has left.
Oh, and just as a point of contrast, Independent Sen. Angus King enjoys a 57% approval. So that's nice.
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