Given the choice between appearing with Vice President J.D. Vance on Thursday in the Maine city she calls home or preserving her record-setting perfect voting streak in the U.S. Senate, Sen. Susan Collins chose to keep her streak alive in Washington.
Ms. Collins continues to leave her mark in the upper chamber. She is not only the longest-serving Republican woman ever in the Senate, but also the first to chair the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, and has staked her claim to being the chamber’s iron woman.
Before Mr. Vance visits her hometown of Bangor, Collins spokesperson Blake Kernen said the Maine Republican would be in Washington “as she always is when the Senate is in session.”
“She has never missed a vote during her entire Senate service and is nearing her 10,000th roll call vote,” he said.
Ms. Collins is hoping voters reward that dedication as she seeks a sixth term in the November midterm election.
The 73-year-old is on a collision course with Graham Platner, the 41-year-old presumptive Democratic nominee, who has never cast a vote in any legislative chamber.
Mr. Platner’s lack of governing experience factored into Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer’s decision to recruit Democratic Gov. Janet Mills to run for the seat.
But with Mr. Platner, a former Marine and oyster farmer, energizing activists and commanding most of the attention, Ms. Mills’ campaign never caught fire. She recently dropped out of the race, clearing the way for the November showdown that will test how much weight voters give to legislative experience and, in Ms. Collins’ case, records.
Democrats likely need to flip the seat to have any realistic shot at flipping control of the U.S. Senate in the midterm elections.
Ms. Collins was first elected to the Senate in the fall of 1996, the same year President Bill Clinton was reelected over Sen. Bob Dole. She wore a deep blue suit jacket and skirt when then-Vice President Al Gore swore her into office on the Senate floor in early January 1997.
That same day, the Senate tapped South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond, a segregationist, by unanimous consent to serve as president pro tempore, putting him third in the line of presidential succession. The chamber also passed, without objection, a resolution honoring West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd for 50 years of service. Mr. Byrd, a Democrat, had founded a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in West Virginia in the 1940s and later opposed civil rights legislation before renouncing both.
Since taking that oath over 29 years and 4 months ago, Ms. Collins has cast 9,977 consecutive votes heading into Thursday’s session.
By the end of the day Thursday, she had cast another roll call vote, voting along party lines to advance a package of Trump nominees for confirmation, including former Missouri Rep. Billy Long as U.S. Ambassador to Iceland.
The Platner campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Ms. Collins’ consecutive voting streak.
But it did blast out a press release accusing Ms. Collins of voting this week to “protect big banks and billionaires” — signaling they see her voting record as a liability.
Ms. Collins’ voting record has also created some friction with President Trump, who has not endorsed her reelection bid.
She voted against the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and this week was one of three senators to break with GOP leadership to advance a Democratic-sponsored war powers resolution that would direct the president to halt hostilities with Iran unless Congress formally authorizes further military action.
She is also one of the three remaining Senate Republicans who voted in 2021 to convict Mr. Trump in his second impeachment trial for inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Some say her voting record mirrors her state.
Mr. Trump has lost the popular vote in Maine three times, though he did collect a single electoral vote in 2016, 2020 and 2024 from the state’s sprawling, rural 2nd Congressional District, which includes Bangor, where Ms. Collins and her husband reside.
With that as a backdrop, Mr. Vance on Thursday gave Ms. Collins a tempered shout-out, telling the Bangor crowd, “Susan is back in D.C. — she doesn’t like to miss votes.”
Mr. Vance, a likely 2028 presidential contender, then acknowledged some frustration with her independence, saying he almost wished she were more partisan.
“But the thing I love about Susan is she is independent because Maine is an independent state, and frankly, if she was as partisan as I sometimes wish she was, she would not be a good fit for the people of Maine,” he said.
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