Susan Margaret Collins (born December 7, 1952) is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator for Maine since 1997. A member of the Republican Party, she is Maine's longest-serving member of Congress and the longest-serving Republican woman in the Senate. Collins has chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee since 2025.
Born in Caribou, Maine, Collins is a graduate of St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. Beginning her career as a staff assistant for Senator William Cohen in 1975, she became staff director of the Oversight of Government Management Subcommittee of the Committee on Governmental Affairs in 1981. Governor John R. McKernan Jr. then appointed her commissioner of the Maine Department of Professional and Financial Regulation in 1987. In 1992 President George H. W. Bush appointed her director of the Small Business Administration's regional office in Boston. Collins became a deputy state treasurer in the office of the treasurer and receiver-general of Massachusetts in 1993. After moving back to Maine in 1994, she became the Republican nominee for governor of Maine in the 1994 general election. She was the first female major-party nominee for the post, finishing third in a four-way race with 23% of the vote. After her bid, she became the founding director of the Center for Family Business at Husson University in Bangor, Maine.
Collins was first elected to the Senate in 1996 and has been reelected every six years since. She chaired the Senate Special Committee on Aging from 2015 to 2021 and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs from 2003 to 2007. Collins is the dean of Maine's congressional delegation and was the only New England Republican in the 116th through 119th Congresses. She is one of only two Republicans to represent a Northeastern state in the Senate and since 2019, the only Republican holding statewide office in Maine. In 2021, Collins became the longest-serving Republican female senator in history, surpassing Margaret Chase Smith, who held the same Senate seat.
Generally seen as a moderate Republican, Collins is often a pivotal vote in the Senate. She was one of three Republicans to vote against a partial repeal of the Affordable Care Act. She was the sole Republican to vote against confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and one of three to vote to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson. Meanwhile, as a pro-choice Republican, Collins drew scrutiny for her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, who joined the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade. In procedural issues, she has maintained her support for the 60-vote Senate threshold, arguing for bipartisan compromise and preserving the filibuster.
During the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton, Collins was one of the few Republican senators who voted to acquit him on both charges. During the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump, Collins joined most other Senate Republicans in voting to acquit on both charges. In his second impeachment trial, she was one of seven Republicans to vote to convict Trump of incitement of insurrection.
Early life and education
One of six children, Collins was born in Caribou, Maine, where her family operates a lumber business established by her great-great-great-grandfather, Samuel W. Collins, in 1844. Her parents, Patricia (née McGuigan) and Donald Collins (1925–2018), each served as mayor of Caribou. Her father, a decorated veteran of World War II, also served in the Maine legislature, with one term in the House, and four in the Senate. Her uncle, Samuel W. Collins Jr., sat on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court from 1988 to 1994 and served in the Maine Senate from 1973 to 1984. Her family owns S. W. Collins, a lumberyard and hardware store chain in northern Maine; her brother Samuel serves as president of S. W. Collins.
Collins attended Caribou High School, where she was president of the student council. During her senior year of high school in 1971, she was chosen to participate in the U.S. Senate Youth Program, through which she visited Washington, D.C., for the first time and had a two-hour conversation with Maine's first female United States Senator, Margaret Chase Smith, also a Republican. Collins is the first program delegate elected to the Senate and holds the seat once held by Smith. After graduating from high school, she continued her education at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. Like her father, she was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa national academic honor society. She graduated from St. Lawrence magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government in 1975.
Early political career
Following graduation, Collins worked as a legislative assistant to U.S. Representative and later U.S. Senator William Cohen from 1975 to 1987. She was staff director of the Oversight of Government Management Subcommittee on the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs from 1981 to 1987.
In 1987, Collins joined the cabinet of Governor John R. McKernan Jr. as Commissioner of the Department of Professional and Financial Regulation. President George H. W. Bush appointed her the New England regional director for the Small Business Administration in 1992. After briefly serving in this post until the 1992 presidential election, which Bill Clinton won, she moved to Massachusetts and became Deputy State Treasurer of Massachusetts under Joe Malone in 1993.
Returning to Maine, Collins won an eight-way Republican primary in the 1994 gubernatorial election, becoming the first woman nominated by a major party for governor of Maine. Collins had considered leaving the crowded gubernatorial race to seek election to Maine's 2nd congressional district, with incumbent Republican Olympia Snowe seeking election to the U.S. Senate, but ultimately chose to stay in the gubernatorial race. During the campaign, she received little support from Republican leaders and was criticized by conservative groups for her more liberal views on social issues. She lost the general election, receiving 23% of the vote and placing third behind Democrat Joseph E. Brennan and the winner, independent candidate Angus King.
In December 1994, Collins became the founding executive director of the Richard E. Dyke Center for Family Business at Husson College. She served in this post until 1996, when she announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by her former boss, William Cohen, who retired to become United States Secretary of Defense under President Bill Clinton. With Cohen's public endorsement, she won a difficult four-way primary and faced Brennan in the general election, a partial rematch of the 1994 gubernatorial race. She defeated Brennan, 49% to 44%.
U.S. Senate Elections
Collins was elected to the Senate in 1996. During the campaign she pledged that, if elected, she would serve only two terms.
Collins was reelected in 2002 over State Senator Chellie Pingree, 58.4% to 41.6%, in 2008 over Representative Tom Allen, 61.5% to 38.5%, and in 2014 over Shenna Bellows, 68.5% to 31.5%. In each of those campaigns, she carried every county in Maine.
In 2020, Collins was challenged by Democratic State House Speaker Sara Gideon. The hotly contested race became the most expensive in Maine history, with Collins spending $23 million and Gideon nearly $48 million. The race also had national implications, as defeating Collins was a key part of the Democrats' strategy to achieve a Senate majority. Despite trailing Gideon in every public poll of the race, Collins defeated Gideon by a decisive margin.
In 2009, Collins was called one of "the last survivors of a once common species of moderate Northeastern Republican". She is considered a centrist Republican and an influential player in the Senate.
Although she shared a centrist ideology with Maine's former senator, Olympia Snowe, Collins is considered a "half-turn more conservative" than Snowe. She was consistently endorsed by the Human Rights Campaign, a major LGBT rights organization, until 2020. She supported John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. She became the state's senior senator in 2013 when Snowe left the Senate and was replaced by independent Angus King, who defeated Collins in the 1994 governor election.
2026 election campaign In the 2026 election, Collins was set to face Democratic nominee Graham Platner after he won the primary, but on July 7, Politico published an article in which Platner was accused of rape by a former girlfriend; this resulted in the withdrawal of numerous endorsements, and although he denied the allegation, Platner withdrew from the race on July 10. The state Democrats nominated Troy Jackson, a former president of the Maine Senate, to replace Platner on the ballot.
Between January 2025 and May 2026, 79 billionaires donated almost $10 million, a third of all donations, to Collins's campaign and political action committees supporting her election. Around $9 million went to Pine Tree Results PAC, a super PAC.
Tenure First term
In the 1990s, Collins played an important role during the Senate's impeachment trial of Bill Clinton when she and Snowe sponsored a motion that would have allowed the Senate to vote separately on the charges and the sentence. The motion failed, and Snowe and Collins voted to acquit, believing that while Clinton had committed perjury, that was not grounds for removal from office.
In 1997, the Senate adopted a broader investigation into White House and congressional campaign fund-raising practices than Senate Republicans initially wanted. Collins said there were "a number of allegations that may or may not be illegal, but they may be improper."
In 2001, Collins authored a measure that granted the United States Secretary of Education authority to grant waivers that would relieve reservists and members of the National Guard from making federal student loan payments during active duty and grant the same privileges to victims and families of those affected by the September 11 attacks. The bill passed the Senate and House in December 2001.
In 2002, the Senate overwhelmingly approved the creation of the Department of Homeland Security while a Democratic effort to remove the bill's provisions fell short on a 52-to-47 vote that came after President George W. Bush lobbied against the vote. Collins and other senators said that Senate and House Republicans, as well as the White House, had given them an "ironclad promise" to essentially rescind provisions in the first spending bill to pass Congress the following year.
Second term
In 2004, Collins was a primary sponsor of legislation overhauling the U.S. intelligence community by creating a new post, Director of National Intelligence, to oversee budgets and most assets of the spy agencies, and mandating that federal agencies establish minimum standards for states pertaining to issuing driver's licenses and birth certificates along with directing the United States Department of Homeland Security to form standards for ID used to board airplanes. Collins said, "This was the most difficult bill to bring from conception to birth that I can imagine being involved with. But that makes the victory doubly satisfying." Bush signed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act on December 17, 2004.