Oxford County, straddling Maine’s border with Canada and the New Hampshire state line, deserves its own Senate debate. So says Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
Collins is running for another six years in the job she was first elected to in 1996, facing Democratic state House Speaker Sara Gideon in a race central to each party’s efforts to win a Senate majority in November. Collins is calling for 16 debates, one for each Maine county, no matter the population size — or lack thereof. While Oxford County, with about 57,000 residents, would get a Senate debate, so would Piscataquis County, in Maine’s forested center, with about 17,000 residents.
It’s an unusual, but not unprecedented, debate play by Collins. Usually, incumbents are loathe to hold too many debates because they boost opponents’ name recognition. But when they seem to be losing, calling for more debates can put a rival on the defensive.
“Anytime a proposal like that occurs, it means the incumbent thinks they’re behind and needs to do something to shake up the race,” said Aaron Kall, director of debate at the University of Michigan. “Generally, incumbents are not calling for debates, or even skip out on debates, and rest on their laurels.”
Gideon has called for five debates. Each candidates’ respective camps are likely to work out some sort of compromise number. But the “debate about debates” reflects Maine’s singularly important significance in 2020 Senate election math. The Pine Tree State is a must-win, or close to it, in Senate Democrats’ quest to overturn their current 47-53 minority status against Republicans in the chamber.
Gideon argues Collins is out of step with Maine having voted to confirm Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, both nominated by President Trump. Collins contends she’s done much to save local industries, such as lobstering and paper production, and has the seniority in Washington to help the state far more than would a rookie senator.
The RealClearPolitics average of polls has Gideon leading Collins 44.5%-42%, within the margin of error for major surveys — meaning the race is effectively tied.
The race is drawing heavy contributions to both sides. At the end of the last fundraising quarter, Gideon’s campaign had $5.5 million in cash on hand, compared to $5 million for Collins.
Though Maine has voted for the Democratic nominee from 1992 on (except for a single Electoral College vote going to Trump in 2016), Collins has proven herself dominant in Maine Senate politics. She’s swatted away high-profile and well-funded Democratic challengers in 2002, 2008, and 2014.
But she’s not politically infallible. In 1994, the strongest midterm election for Republicans in decades, she lost the Maine gubernatorial race to independent Angus King. He’s now a senator who caucuses with Democrats.
And incumbents do sometimes call for more debates than challengers. In North Carolina, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis is doing so against his Democratic opponent, former state senator and Iraq War veteran Cal Cunningham. So are endangered Republican Sens. Steve Daines in Montana, Joni Ernst in Iowa, and Cory Gardner in Colorado, Kall said. Each is calling for at least four debates.
“They want to drive down the favorables of these Democratic candidates” they’re running against, Kall told the Washington Examiner. “If the opposing candidate declines, you can say, ‘What are you hiding?'”
The tactic doesn’t always work. In Alabama, Tommy Tuberville won the Republican Senate runoff on Tuesday against former senator and Attorney General Jeff Sessions without participating in many debates.
Back in 1980, Democratic Sen. Birch Bayh of Indiana, running for reelection in the seat he first won in 1962, underestimated his 33-year-old Republican challenger, Rep. Dan Quayle. The pair engaged in seven debates, with Quayle performing surprisingly well. Quayle beat Bayh 53.8%-46.2%, while Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan romped to victory over Democratic President Jimmy Carter. Quayle won reelection to the Senate easily in 1986 and was vice president from 1989-1993 under President George H.W. Bush.
In Collins’s case this year, her call for 16 debates is unlikely to work, said Sandy Maisel, professor at Colby College, in Waterville, Maine.
“It’s a stunt, and I think it was viewed in most of Maine as a stunt,” Maisel told the Washington Examiner. “Collins is clearly in trouble. She’s been a formidable candidate. But her favorability ratings went down about 30% in about a year-and-a-half.”
In addition to backing Trump’s Supreme Court pick, Collins has also supported the 2017 Republican tax cut law, opposed the president’s impeachment, and voted to confirm John Ratcliffe as director of national intelligence, Maisel noted.
And most recently, she didn’t even put out a critical statement after Trump commuted the prison sentence of his longtime adviser Roger Stone.
“Her nonreaction to Stone was absolutely astounding,” Maisel said.
