Susan Collins should never be underestimated. She won her first Senate election 30 years ago, and her sheer tenacity in staying in power is formidable, especially since, over the course of her political career, Maine hasn’t been hospitable ground for Republicans (the state last gave the popular vote to a GOP president in 1988).
But Collins’s undeniable gift for pork-barrel spending could now come back to haunt her, thanks to a new pay-for-play scandal broken on Tuesday by ProPublica. The ProPublica story focuses on Collins’s links to Martin Kao, the former CEO of a defense contractor called Navatek. Last year, Kao was sentenced to 87 months in prison for bank fraud and Covid relief fraud.
ProPublica’s reporting shows that Kao’s operation was almost comically corrupt. Despite the denials of Collins’s office, the ProPublica report is damning. It’s also being picked up by local media in Maine. Troy Jackson, the Democratic candidate in the Senate race, put out a punchy ad quoting the reporting and labelling his rival “Corrupt Collins.”
Yea lol Janet Mills had like 30% turn out in the primary. So 30% of democrats were willing to send in a losing candidate because she was old and familiar. Thats my read anyway. Its not that maine has a ton of republicans, we have a ton of independents and a lot of divisive democrats who break into factions any time they can. Much like the rest of the country. “how do these evil incompetent assholes keep winning??” idk guys who are they running against and how are they being presented. What platforms are you losing on. So many questions, if only there was a political organization with billions of dollars at its disposal to organize better cadidates and platforms! We could call it the DNC