Charles Schumer

Chuck Schumer and his Washington, D.C., allies have to lie about Sen. Susan Collins’ record to attack her. Collins’ independence and her loyalty to Maine over party bosses scares one-party-rule politicians, so Schumer keeps trying to tie her to extremes that he invents.

Consider Medicaid: Schumer’s allies claim Collins voted to gut it. She didn’t. She voted against the One Big Beautiful Bill Act specifically because of its Medicaid cuts, then fought to secure $190 million for Maine’s rural hospitals and health centers — work that earned her the Congressional Medicaid Champion Award.

Or consider ICE: Schumer’s crowd says Collins handed the agency a blank check with no guardrails. This is also false. Collins authored the accountability measures in the Homeland Security funding bill herself: $20 million to expand body-worn cameras across ICE, $2 million for de-escalation training and a 17% funding increase for the department’s independent inspector general so that incidents actually get investigated. All of it became law in April. The rollout was delayed because Democrats shut down the government, not because Collins failed to act.

Chuck Schumer will keep lying about Collins’ record because the truth doesn’t help him. But Mainers pay attention. We know the difference between a senator who works for us and a party machine that just wants our vote.