Talk Elections

Maine Senate: Collins (R) 59%, Bellows (D) 31%

The survey of 750 Likely Voters in Maine was conducted on September 3-4, 2014 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2014/maine/election_2014_maine_senate

Bellowsmentum !

"Collins below 60? Likely Democrat" - KCDem

You beat me to it! But I was thinking more Tossup/Tilt R...

> Rasmussen

>Rass. She's still gonna win. Quit bashing her because she's a Republican. If you're gonna do that on party only, you clearly have no idea what she's really like

Who's bashing her?

I hate Republican hawk "moderates". I like other Republicans. Deal with it.

I hope Bellows could sneak a win, but the best I can hope for is her to cross 40. She's my favorite Democrat candidate this year.

If Bellows "sneaks a win", then it would probably mean that 2014 is Democratic Wave year of epic proportions.

On a poll that said she was dominating, people were reacting in disgust

Susan Collins is worse than Ted Cruz

Actually I'm pretty sure it would take the Republican Party literally self destructing and ceasing to exist for that to occur. She beat a solid opponent who represented half the state by 22 points even in the Dem wave year of 2008.

What do you expect on a forum with a liberal and libertarian bias?

She is FAR to the left of cruz.

Susan Collins votes with Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz on basically everything of importance. She's just as far-right in practice as the rest of them.

This.

I don't understand how democrats can vote for her. I mean, she basically voted against the $10 dollars increase...

I'll have what he's smoking

Moderate heroes typically are the most dangerous people in politics. As I've always said when it comes to Norman Thomas or Bernie Sanders (or Allen West or Ted Cruz): I rather know what I'm getting.

At the end of the day, Susan Collins is still a Republican. The people of Maine don't realize that a vote for Collins is a vote to give Republicans control of the Senate.

I wish they would make ads that emphasized this.

It wouldn't matter. If they didn't realize and care about it in 1996, 2002, and 2008, why are they going to do so now?

National Journal disagrees with you. In its 2013 vote rankings, Ted Cruz is rated the 4th most conservative senator, Collins is the most moderate republican in the senate (!). (McConnell, for the record, is at 25th most conservative)

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Here's the thing. Although Collins is to the right of Snowe (R-ME; Retired in '12), she remains moderate enough for the state of Maine, and if she was any more moderate, she'd be to the left of at least one democrat. She is nowhere near Mike Lee/Ted Cruz types of republicans in any way, shape, or form. She faced credible opponents in 96, 02, and 08, and aside from 96, she has always won by over 15 points. Bellows is her lowest-tier opponent yet, and she's not going to win no matter what. I'll be surprised if this race is within 20 points.

She's as safe, if not safer, as Risch in ID, Lankford and Inhofe in OK, and Alexander in TN.

Maine is a small state, and small states like to keep their senators for ages to get the goodies senior congresspeople can bring. Perhaps this tendency will change as the national mood and budget hawkery kills off "earmark culture" - I think the sun has set on the Ted Stevens/Dan Inouye/Rob Byrd types for good.

The best Bellows can do is hope to outperform Allen. Not entirely beyond the realms of possibility - 2014 reflects a vastly more polarised electorate than 2008, with more "one party" voters - but still unlikely given the political weather and the weaker ( :'( sorry Bellows ) candidate.

I'd actually wager that Bellows will narrowly outperform Allen, partly due to the increased polarization you speak of but more so because Bellows presents a starker contrast to Collins than Allen did. There's a small but significant chunk of Democrats/Democratic-leaning independents voters who approve of Collins, enough to vote for her in 2008, and would vote for her again in 2014 under certain circumstances but are very excited by Bellows and her ideas despite understanding her inability to win. It's the same reason that Scott Brown likely would have beaten a more moderate/generic Democrat in 2012; most were casting a vote for Elizabeth Warren rather than against Scott Brown.

Not that it will be much different, but maybe 2-3 points. It has nothing to do with Bellows being a better candidate than Allen (because obviously she isn't).

She voted to filibuster just about everything the Democrats opposed. She's not remotely moderate. There are no liberal or moderate Republicans in the Senate any more. Javitts was a liberal Republican and Chafee was a moderate Republican.

So what? The people of Maine care about the person and the issues, not the party. Collins is a good person who lines up with their ideas and is known for pushing the idea of working together, which is why Snowe and King are also so beloved, but LePage and Baldacci are so lukewarm there. If you're really going to say pushing to work together to END the gridlock is less important than a letter after someone's name and maintaining muh majority, then I have no respect for you whatsoever.

"End the gridlock"

That is such nonsense. It's meaningless if what gets done doesn't work or is harmful, as most bipartisan efforts tend to be, and that would only be worse if we "end the gridlock".

More hackery from Freedomhawk. The "gridlock" is entirely a creation of the Republican party's abuse of the filibuster, something that Collins has had no problem voting in lockstep with Mitch McConnell on.

I had a completely different response to your Navy SEAL-esque ragefit because I dared to criticize one of the last "Rockefeller Republicans". Never mind the fact that Shenna Bellows' political views mirror mine, or that I think she's a good progressive like Sanders or Feingold or even Warren. The fact that she'd easily be my favorite Senator if she got elected is irrelevant. Apparently it's because I'm blindly supporting a Democrat and want a majority (because let's face it - you'd do the same for me). Hell, even some Democrats like her because she wants gay people to marry (even though she bravely came out for it as soon as she won her primary), or that she doesn't like guns, or that she believes birth control should be available. Let's look at some bills she opposed.

• Ah, the DISCLOSE Act, (http://www.collins.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=1a739b78-802a-23ad-4b61-cdfaef9358e3) which required superPACs to actually show where they get their money.
• The Paycheck Fairness Act, (http://www.collins.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=f29d3587-f3aa-4154-8c12-8e53bbec134a) which mandates that women be paid the same amount as men.
• Tax cuts for small businesses. (http://votesmart.org/bill/votes/41180#.VAuODvldXA4)
• The DREAM Act, (http://www.salon.com/2010/12/08/maine_dream_dadt/) which gives immigrant children who came here illegally a pathway to stay in the country they grew up in.
• Chuck Hagel's confirmation to Secretary of Defense, (http://www.collins.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=6c820930-a130-483d-9d18-85a9375d4201) because he's too soft on Iran and could leave a country actively engaging in genocide open to danger.
• Student loan relief, (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=1&vote=00143) which would help ease the burden of debt that we saddle our students with.
• Tax cuts for businesses that keep our jobs here (https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/111-2010/s242) instead of to Asia and keep our profits American.
• Improving care for our veterans, (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=2&vote=00046) and giving back to those who served us.

These are only a few of these important, common-sense bills that your messiah opposed, along with the rest of the Republican Party. Even her former colleague and staunch conservative Rick Santorum (http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3426) said that Collins was always a team player, and would vote GOP in reality. Yeah, she may line up with some of the Democrats' "pet issues" sometimes, but when it matters, Susan Collins bows down to Mitch McConnell, not the people of Maine.

More like Harry Reid's abuse of an obscure rule that lets him limit amendments, refusal to even listen to the opposition, and hyperpartisanship in general.

Messiah? You're resorting to personal attacks now? Why call out Susan Collins, who is honestly meh but I still like her, a deciding vote in the Stimulus, for being a team player when that is EVERYONE? At least she advocates for compromise, which is different from being a team player, which, yeah she is in the end. And who are you to say she doesn't serve the people? Like any politician does nowadays. Of course she has an agenda, but at least she TRIES to advocate for compromise against the hyperpartisanship that drove out her long-time colleague and frenemy out of the Senate in the first place due to hacks like Harry Reid. Bellows is a swell person, from what I've read, but in the end, she'd be just as partisan as anyone, so don't go treating HER like some messiah when she'd be doing just what Collins does, but with a D after her name and with hyperpartisan tendencies

To be honest, I think everyone on this thread is right.  Everyone's produced gridlock, even the sainted "moderate heroes."  

Ideologically, Collins is closer to Cruz than any Democrat, based on voting records.

However, I am surprised people on the left are that disgusted by her.  She does take fairly liberal positions on abortion, the environment, gun control, and some other issues.  

I think the real anger at Collins comes from the fact that she is a Republican senator from a blue(atlas Red) state like Maine, a state that "ought" to have a D Senator.  If Collins was a Senator from say, Utah, liberals would absolutely adore her.

If hyperpartisanship wasn't an issue, why would Snowe have left if she was all lined up to run and was basically guaranteed to win?

I like that you seem genuinely angry that some people on here have the audacity to dislike a politician.

Yeah, I would rather have a Democrat in her seat. More Democrats in congress means a better chance at an actually functioning legislative branch.

Yeah....we have gotten to that point with the GOP.

Uhh, how are Democrats in charge automatically going to make it functional? It is the divide that is hurting everything.

Because her husbands for-profit college scandal? (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54444.html)

The "hypepartisanship" reason is clearly a bunch of B.S., though I can imagine why you are blind to see through it.