Hazy Susan

“Susan Collins is always there when we need her,” Republican activist Charlie Kirk crowed after the Maine Republican voted to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence in February.

At worst, he’s half wrong.

When it comes to important Republican policies being codified or nominations to key positions getting a green light in the Senate, Collins is a regular deciding vote. But it’s not always easy to anticipate how she’ll decide to vote.

Since the start of the second Trump presidency, Collins’s voting behavior has been confounding. For starters, consider her record on Trump administration nominees. In the “yea” column, you will find her votes to confirm anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as HHS secretary, white nationalist-linked Joe Kent as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Pam Bondi as attorney general, and Gabbard as DNI.

So far, so MAGA.

But that isn’t the whole story. Collins has also put herself in the “nay” column on more than one of Trump’s nominees. She voted against Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, citing concerns that “he does not have the experience and perspective necessary to succeed in the job.” She refused to support Kash Patel to head the FBI because “there is a compelling need for an FBI Director who is decidedly apolitical.”

Last week, just before the Senate wrapped up its business until September, Collins voted against Emil Bove for a lifetime appointment to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, but voted to confirm Jeanine Pirro as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

The problem for the Collins predictors is that her reasons for voting against certain nominees could easily apply to the ones whom she supported. It’s easy to understand why she would require a nominee to an important Justice Department position to be “decidedly apolitical”—the standard to which she held Patel—but then, why does she not take that standard to apply to the attorney general overseeing Patel and D.C.’s U.S. attorney?

It makes sense that a “lack of experience” was enough for her to oppose Hegseth. But why does that stated reason not apply to America’s top health care position (RFK Jr. quite literally revealed in his confirmation that he had no clue how Medicaid worked), or pivotal intelligence community posts?

What becomes clear when you look at the tallies for each of these confirmation votes is that Collins doesn’t want to shoulder too much of the credit or the blame.

Back when Collins served alongside former Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), the wisdom inside the Capitol was that Collins always waited to see which way her colleague would vote first before going in the same direction.

Snowe left office in 2013. And now Collins routinely takes a contrarian view from her party only after it has become apparent that the damage won’t be massive. That pattern extends beyond confirmation votes on nominees. In the first major legislative battle of the second Trump presidency, Collins voted against Trump’s giant budget, the “big, beautiful bill.” The vote ended up being 50–50, with Vice President JD Vance casting the deciding vote. Collins gets to claim to have been guided by principle without being subject to the consequences that would have come to anyone responsible for stopping the bill’s passage. We can’t know how she would have voted if her nay would have tanked the entire enterprise. But given that Collins is seeking a sixth term in the Senate in 2026 and there remains the prospect of a Trump-sparked primary fight ahead, I think it’s reasonable to imagine she would have found a way to vote in favor of the bill instead. For the motivated reasoner, reasons are never hard to find.

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Flood pantsed

This August recess, I’m keeping my eye on two things. The first is how Republicans are attempting to sell the “big, beautiful bill” they passed to those angry constituents who wish they hadn’t.

It’s been almost two weeks since the House of Representatives left Washington, but in all that time, Republican town halls have been scarce. At least one lawmaker did hold one, though, and as you might expect, it didn’t go well—particularly when he brought up the budget. Constituents met Rep. Mike Flood (R-Neb.) at a town hall Monday night with a barrage of boos.

The key moment making the rounds on social media came when Flood, while recounting the budget’s changes to Medicaid, claimed that removing millions of recipients will not damage the program. “More than anything, I truly believe this bill protects Medicaid for the future,” Flood said, echoing a common Republican talking point.

The crowd erupted in disgust. Flood nodded in response, uttered “I believe it!,” and returned to his lectern, where he shuffled papers.

Flood had a rough time on stage that night, but at least he’s putting in the effort. Many Republicans are engaging with constituents only in more controlled environments, such as virtual-only “town halls,” or avoiding the process outright.

According to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll released at the end of July, more than half of the nation’s independents believe the policies in the budget “will hurt them and their families.” Beyond that, almost two-thirds of Americans hold a negative opinion of the plan Trump signed into law on July 4.

Those numbers are a big reason Flood’s town hall stands out. Republicans across the country anticipate receiving similar treatment should they attempt to meet voters in actual, real life and not some digital forum. Nebraska’s first congressional district, which Flood won handily in 2024, is not the kind of place the party wants to be getting that kind of heat as it starts to look ahead to next year’s midterms.

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Highway to Hell

The second item I’m watching this August recess is how much flak Republicans catch over the party’s turnabout on the Jeffrey Epstein files, which remain under wraps at the FBI. The story hasn’t faded, much as Trump wishes it would. Instead, it’s becoming a genuine pain point for the party’s conspiracist base. Many diehard supporters are starting to wonder if it was wise for them to put their trust in Trump to deliver on his longstanding promise to reveal all that has been hidden on Epstein’s crimes and death.

During his town hall, Flood faced heated questions on the issue. “Why are you covering up the Epstein files?” one constituent asked him.

“Let’s be very clear,” Flood responded. “At the next pro-forma session of the Congress, you’ll find my name as a sponsor on a resolution from the House Rules Committee to release the Epstein files, to protect the victims and not revictimize them again. I support Jamie Comer, who is the House’s Oversight Committee chairman subpoenaing [Ghislaine] Maxwell later this month to come testify in Washington. I am for the release of those records.”

As I reported before Congress left town, Republicans appear to be more nervous now about the political ramifications of their perceived faithlessness on Epstein than they have in virtually any other political scenario over the past decade. Flood rediscovering how to speak from his chest on this point even as he waffled through the rest of his town hall suggests he’s very aware of the importance of Epstein to GOP voters.

This dynamic extends far beyond Nebraska. In Arizona, where Rep. Andy Biggs—a former Freedom Caucus chairman—is running for governor in 2026, Republican voters haven’t forgotten Epstein or the vast criminal conspiracy in which they believe he had a central role.

Over the highway in Mesa, just outside of Phoenix, residents held large signs that spelled out a message condemning Biggs for his apparent reluctance to help bring the Epstein files to light.

“BIGGS PROTECTS PEDOS” is probably not the sort of message that would help a Republican candidate win a statewide election in Arizona—or, well, anywhere? Both of the state’s senators and the governor are Democrats, which means Biggs is already at a disadvantage. If he starts to see cracks in his support from the Republican base over the Epstein issue, his chances of winning will deteriorate further. Arizona appears to be moderating: Over the past several years, voters there have tended to elect more moderate, level-headed candidates over right-wing troublemakers and carnival barkers.1 It’s not good for a candidate closer in temperament and substance to the latter category to run without a strong GOP base. Let’s just say that if political futures were tradeable commodities, I have a hunch about which shares Nancy Pelosi would buy in such a situation.