AI Summary
5 min readSusan Collins, political ninja
When Susan Collins first ran for the Senate in 1996, she made a promise that seemed tailor-made for Maine's good-government sensibilities: she would serve only two terms. "Twelve years is long enough to be in public service, make a contribution, and then come home and let someone else take your place," she said at the time. Nearly three decades later, Collins is still in Washington, running for a sixth term in a state that Kamala Harris won—the only Republican senator in the country facing that particular electoral math. How she has survived this long, and whether she can do it again, is a story about old-school retail politics, a changing Republican Party, and the gravitational pull of Donald Trump.
The power of bringing home the bacon
The key to Collins's longevity is simple but easy to underestimate from afar: she has delivered tangible results for Maine. As chair of the Appropriations Committee, she has steered federal money to small towns across the state in ways that voters feel directly. Producer Denise Guerra, who pitched the episode, described Collins as "a ninja"—quiet, flexible, quick, capable of doing things that seem impossible. Alex Seitz-Wald from Maine's Midcoast Villager, who has been covering the race, agreed with the comparison.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **Introducing the "Ninja" Thesis** - Producer Denise Guerra pitches a Susan Collins story as "boring" until she reframes the senator as a "ninja," prompting host Sean Rameswaram to investigate.
- 2 (02:04) **The Broken Term-Limit Pledge** - The episode opens by establishing Collins’s original promise to serve only two terms, a core part of her initial appeal that she has since abandoned.
- 3 (03:45) **The Power of Pork: Delivering for Maine** - Collins’s survival is largely credited to her tangible, local achievements as a powerful appropriator, which creates deep, transactional loyalty among voters.
- 4 (06:53) **The Core Electoral Question** - The analysis boils down the election to a single calculation: whether voters will prioritize Collins’s local deliverables over her national party affiliation and controversial votes.
- 5 (07:25) **The Triangulation Tactic** - The episode details how Collins navigates controversial votes, often taking seemingly contradictory positions to appeal to different audiences.
- 6 (09:14) **The End of an Era** - The discussion moves to the broader historical significance of Collins, framing her as the last of a dying breed: the moderate, institutionalist Yankee Republican.
- 7 (10:46) **Donald Trump: The Third Candidate** - The episode pivots to the national context, introducing Donald Trump as the invisible third candidate whose presence defines the race.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
The Maine senator has dodged decades of attacks, but President Trump’s low approval ratings could be her political deathblow.
This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy and Dustin DeSoto, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by David Tatasciore and Bridger Dunnagan, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram.
Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) is seen before her debate with Democratic candidate for the Senate Troy Jackson in Bangor, Maine on October 15, 2026. Photo by Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images.
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