This is getting even worse for Susan Collins
The far-right cavalry has finally arrived to try to bail Susan Collins out of the deep hole she’s dug for herself, but as it turns out, it’s not much of a cavalry. She seemed to think that she could vote for Brett Kavanaugh, give a deranged speech in his defense, alienate everyone in the American left and middle, and that the far-right would step in and somehow fix everything for her. That’s not how this is playing out so far.
In a sign of just how hated Susan Collins has become in her home state of Maine, a far-right group has begun running television ads in the state, thanking her for voting in favor of Kavanaugh. There’s a lot of noise being made about the fact that this is precisely the same kind of dark money that Collins (falsely) accused the left of trying to use against Kavanaugh.
But the real story here is that this six figure ad buy is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the $3.7 million and counting that’s been crowdfunded for Susan Collins’ Democratic opponent in 2020, whether that ends up being Susan Rice or someone else. Moreover, the far-right group funding these ads has the stated mission of getting judges confirmed, not the stated mission of getting Collins reelected. There is no reason to necessarily expect that, two years from now, this group will open up its wallet for Collins’ campaign.
But the real problem here for Susan Collins is that these ads can only serve to make things even worse for her. For Collins to have any slim hope of a future in politics, she would need voters to forget about the Brett Kavanaugh disaster. Instead, these ads – which again, are aimed at propping up Kavanaugh’s reputation, and not necessarily at helping Collins – are simply reminding voters that she’s the reason this unstable and unsuitable guy is on the Supreme Court. This is getting worse for her, not better.
