For folks outside Maine who are struggling to understand why Graham Platner caught fire with Maine voters and seems to have a commanding lead in the primary...here's the explainer you've been waiting for. Strong reporting from Josh O'Keefe. #MEpolitics

A welcome piece and a good reminder of what anyone running against Susan Collins is up against. Don't remember coining the term "Collins Media Industrial Complex" but happy to take credit for it! #MEpolitics

Local angle: This is Susan Collins's press secretary's dad. #MEpolitics

Maine legacy media beclowning itself is a good opening to discuss our plans for the next seven months: We've stepped up our posting; that'll continue and we may post more on Substack too. susancollinswatch.substack.com Please subscribe and tell Mainers in your life to follow us! #MEpolitics

This can't be right can it? "[Susan] Collins’ senate office has employed nearly 90 staffers that previously were or later became lobbyists." #MEpolitics via @dabbs346.bsky.social

It's crucial to keep voting for Susan Collins even if you disagree with her on the issues because she and she alone can keep bringing home the bacon to Maine. Or something. #MEpolitics

"Don't be fooled again." #MEpolitics

The problem with threatening to annihilate a whole country, you see, is that it's not conducive to negotiations. #MEpolitics

Once upon a time Susan Collins loudly proclaimed that Trump was unfit. Since then he's incited a violent coup, tried to become a despot and most recently launched the dumbest of dumb wars...and now she's no longer concerned. Talk about a journey to the dark side! #MEpolitics

Angus wakes up? #MEpolitics

Susan Collins sends $10,000 to bigoted Florida man Paul LePage. How many howl-at-the-moon racist cranks have you given five-digit donations to? #MEpolitics

Not our beat, exactly, but an interesting and telling development. #MEpolitics

Susan Collins doesn't regret giving Trump a green light to prosecute his senseless, deadly and exorbitantly expensive wag-the-dog war in Iran that has left us less safe than we were before. Over and over she keeps telling Mainers exactly who she is. #MEpolitics

Per its calendar, the Senate Appropriations Committee which Susan Collins chairs hasn't held a hearing of any kind since February 10 and those were subcommittee hearings. It hasn't held a full committee hearing since 9/11/2025. There have been exactly zero legacy media stories on this. #MEpolitics

Notable figure in the MAGA plot to overturn the 2020 election (tinyurl.com/268mvdze) salutes Susan Collins for joining the ranks of the election deniers. This is who she's become. #MEpolitics

This is great. This is how you make Susan Collins sweat. #MEpolitics

Hey Portland Portland Press Herald: What did she *do* to oppose it? (Answer: Absolutely nothing.) #mediafail #MEpolitics

Doubt this really matters? But probably better than not for DC Dems to be signaling that they will back the Dem nominee (Graham Platner in this case) if their favorites doesn't prevail in primaries. #MEpolitics

Check out the depiction of Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez in Susan Collins fundraising solicitation and compare it with what Ocasio-Cortez actually looks like. What's going on here? #MEpolitics @aoc.bsky.social via @dabbs346.bsky.social

Sorry but this is embarrassing and not ready for prime time. The filibuster is a threshold issue but five months into the race Janet Mills is once again adjusting her position on it. This is her third stance on the filibuster since joining the race in October. #MEpolitics

Looks like Janet Mills raised slightly less in Q1 than in Q4. #MEpolitics

Angus King still sending out joint press releases with Susan Collins. He's a totally unserious individual. What a waste. #MEpolitics

Mainers are so much wiser than the local media orgs that profess to "serve" them -- by constantly running PR errands for Susan Collins. Such a shame. Folks deserve better. #MEpolitics

PPH is under no obligation to publish this junk from a group trying to kill the country. Would they run a piece by a Ku Klux Klan official? No, they would not. So why are they OK w/ platforming an org whose founder/chairman was a key figure in Trump's push to overturn the 2020 election? #MEpolitics

Sick and twisted. Susan Collins hand-in-glove with 2020 election deniers and coup enablers. #MEpolitics

Protesters at Susan Collins office in her old hometown (population 7,431) in one of the redder parts of Maine where her family remains a force to be reckoned with via their multi-generational business that sits across the street if we recall correctly. Huge credit to these folks. #MEpolitics

Not Susan Collins. #MEpolitics

Good to see. The subtext of any primary campaign against an incumbent is: Who's better equipped to defeat them? It'd be great to see more of Platner/Mills *demonstrating* how & why they'd be better to take Collins on, not just asserting they'd be. This ad is a step in that direction. #MEpolitics

Why a Democratic candidate running in a Senate primary in 2026 would go out of their way to advertise that they want to keep the filibuster is a mystery. #MEpolitics

Susan Collins continues to embrace the GOP's vote suppression bill and to cast herself as "the firewall" against its defeat. It's disgusting and disqualifying all by itself. Dems and Dem-aligned groups should be messaging on this and running ads about it. #MEpolitics

Susan Collins thinks it's unfortunate that the President used a curse word in his post threatening to commit war crimes. tinyurl.com/yk2vzvhx#MEp...

Weeks before early voting, we finally get the first story in Maine legacy media on policy differences btwn the ME-Sen Dem candidates. And it's bad! Stuff like: "Platner has been campaigning in support of Medicare for All. Mills, however, calls for universal health care." Gee, thanks! #MEpolitics

Too bad Maine doesn't have any federal reps in a position to do anything about this -- hold hearings, block nominees etc. Maybe after November. #MEpolitics

Reminds us of when Susan Collins staff leaked non-public info about a high schooler as part of a push to smear the teenager for having had the temerity to criticize Collins. tinyurl.com/452hmba3 tinyurl.com/bdzxv6fy Going after kids a standard part of the Maine GOP playbook apparently. #MEpolitics

"Susan Collins is one reason my daughter will grow up with fewer rights than the generations before her!" True! And beyond scandalous that this salient fact doesn't get more (any!) attention in local news coverage. Seems verboten for Maine reporters to mention let alone explore. #MEpolitics

According to Susan Collins the United States can't afford universal pre-k...which would cost less per year than we've spent on the illegal war of choice with Iran that she supports. #MEpolitics

'Susan Collins and Janet Mills deny water is wet' moment in this AP article on the community-oriented bent of Graham Platner's campaign. #MEpolitics

Gotta understand Susan Collins to beat her and this post gets her journey wrong: She's ALWAYS been an errand-runner for the 0.1%. What changed isn't $$$. It's that her base lost patience w/ the moderate act and to keep 'em on board she mostly ditched it. Coalition moved right/narrowed. #MEpolitics

Unclear if this post is a product of the leadership of the *current* Homeland Security Secretary -- who Susan Collins voted to confirm -- or the *prior* one...who she also voted to confirm. (Also: How does this sort of thing play in Maine, one wonders?) #MEpolitics

Who did this? #MEpolitics via @aobrien2024.bsky.social

Susan Collins own campaign published two photos of supporters...and they couldn't help but include at least four lobbyists! (They'd be more careful if they thought there was even a chance Maine legacy media outlets might notice.) #MEpolitics

Why is Graham Platner's campaign sending fundraising solicitations with a pre-checked recurring donation box? (tinyurl.com/33rcn6w2) This is the same icky practice -- which the FEC has called on Congress to ban -- that Susan Collins has (rightly) been criticized for. #MEpolitics

Susan Collins says the Pentagon has suffered from "years of underfunding." #MEpolitics

@midcoastvillager.bsky.social on the Passover seder Graham Platner attended Thursday. #MEpolitics

Group photo of folks letting the world know they couldn't care less about the shredding of abortion rights, Americans being grabbed up off the street by masked thugs, and the shriveling of the rule of law generally. If you know anyone in this photo...at least now you know! #MEpolitics

It's weird because I keep being told Susan Collins runs the Senate committee that decides what gets spent where. #MEpolitics

Telling that Susan Collins has to turn to lobbyists to sing her praises in her PR. Worth keeping in mind that anyone who shows up in a Susan Collins ad or in a smiling photo-op is telling the world that they don't give a whit about abortion rights. #MEpolitics via @aobrien2024.bsky.social

In 2020 this would've been good news for Susan Collins -- an opportunity to vote against what's bound to be another bonkers Trump pick. But the vise she's caught in -- btwn her MAGA base and the median Maine voter -- has only tightened since then. A vote like this is now a liability. #MEpolitics

Who wants to play "Spot the lobbyist"? #MEpolitics