An ICE shooting could upend Maine's Senate race

Susan Collins, the Republican senator for Maine, was already in a tight race for her seat. Polls showed her neck-and-neck with Democrats. But then Democrat Graham Platner had to drop out, sending the liberal party in search of a new nominee and opening a window for Collins to gain momentum.

That all changed when an ICE agent opened fire in her state. It is now a confrontation that can change Collins' Senate race, and ultimately, which party controls the Senate after November.

Collins breaks with Trump on ICE policy

On Thursday, Collins described her thoughts about President Donald Trump reversing course on plans to halt traffic stops by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. This came after an ICE agent in Biddeford shot and killed Joan Sebastian Guerrero Monday morning.

“I don’t agree with his decision,” she told The Independent.

Immediately, Nirav Shah, a candidate for the Democratic nomination to run against Collins, responded on social media. “The difference is I’ll actually do something about it,” he said.

He was not the only one to criticise Collins this week. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat and critic of ICE, pushed back against Collins’ claim that she advocated for body cameras and training for ICE in a recent bill.

“Senator Collins wrote the blank check to allow these officers to conduct themselves in the way that they have in Maine in the first place, and she’s the one who’s poured resources into it,” Ocasio-Cortez told The Independent.

In response, Dan Kleban, another candidate for Senate in Maine, agreed with Ocasio-Cortez. “@SenatorCollins is more ‘concerned’ about protecting Donald Trump’s rogue thugs bringing violence to our communities than she is about protecting her own constituents here in Maine,” Kleban posted on X.

The bind for Collins on immigration

The ICE shooting in Maine, part of Trump’s push to deport more migrants, has put Collins in a bind when it comes to the Trump administration that she has never really faced in her career. Collins has largely been able to survive the fate of other Republicans in states that elect Democrats for president because she has made the occasional breaks with Trump. That allowed her to defy the odds in 2020 and win by 8 points despite Joe Biden winning the state by 9 points. Republicans quickly shared memes portraying Collins sitting on a throne of skulls of her opponents.

Up until last week, it looked like everything might be going Collins’s way in the Maine Senate race. She polled ahead of Graham Platner, the oyster farmer and her populist progressive Democratic opponent. Platner had faced numerous negative media reports culminating in a Politico report where an ex-girlfriend claimed that he sexually assaulted her, which Platner denied. That led to Democrats rescinding endorsements of Platner and him exiting the race.

Democrats scramble for a new candidate

Now, Democrats are in a mad dash to replace Platner on the ballot before July 27, which will happen by convention. On Thursday, the Democratic candidates for Senate held their first debate, which took place in two parts. During that debate, nearly all of the candidates excoriated ICE.

“I blocked ICE from having undercover license plates because there are no secret police in a democracy,” Shenna Bellows, Maine’s secretary of state, said in her opening remarks. Bellows ran against Collins in 2014 and lost by a walloping double-digit margin. But she argues she can do better this time.

Collins has touted the fact that she is chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which allocates spending, resulting in millions of dollars going to Maine. But former Maine Senate president Troy Jackson sought to flip that narrative during the debate. “Being the appropriations chair, she should have been able to stop ICE. She should have been able to stop so many of these things,” Jackson, a populist who often campaigned with Platner, said during the debate.

A crisis for Collins?

For Collins, this might be a full-blown crisis. Democrats only need four seats to win control of the Senate, and Maine is the only state on the map that did not vote for Trump, making it the easiest pick-up. Every other state would require winning people who otherwise voted for Trump.

And the fact that now the election is largely a referendum on Trump’s presidency could put her in a difficult spot. This is to say nothing of the fact that she voted to confirm five of the six justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade. Democrats still need to pick up the pieces and nominate a credible candidate and run a nimble campaign that can beat Collins, but it is becoming increasingly difficult for her to run away from Trump.