One of President Donald Trump’s most vocal critics within the Republican Party was handed some sobering news about her political future by voters in her home state.
Susan Collins (R-ME) recently announced that she will seek reelection in 2026. But her future is now in serious doubt after a new poll showed Collins’ approval rating has sunk to an all-time low.
Amid a tense summer session in the Senate where she repeatedly broke away from her party and President Trump on multiple crucial votes, Collins now finds her once sky-high approval ratings suddenly in a free fall.
As part of its quarterly poll of Senator’s approval ratings, Morning Consult shows the favorability of the longtime Maine senator, now 72, to be the worst ever.
According to the new poll, a whopping 54% of Maine voters disapprove of Collins’ job performance, marking a high point for her disapproval in the Morning Consult survey’s eight-year history.
By contrast, only 38% of voters in the state approve of her performance in office.
The new numbers for Collins are a sharp downturn from the last quarterly poll conducted by The Morning Consult survey from the fourth quarter of 2024, which showed 44% of Maine voters disapproved of Collins.
And an ever further decline from the third quarter of 2024, where only 42% disapproved, according to the Morning Consult’s poll at the time.
The decline of Collins’ approval ratings in the Morning Consult survey comes after she opposed Trump on key elements of his agenda.
As first reported by The Daily Caller, Collins was one of three GOP senators to vote “no” on Trump’s “one big, beautiful” bill, which the president signed into law on July 4. Collins cited concerns over the bill’s Medicaid reforms.
However, the vote came AFTER the Morning Consult survey was conducted, according to the report.
Leading up to the final vote to pass the bill, Collins sponsored a measure to raise taxes on millionaires in an effort to boost the funding for rural hospitals. The amendment would have applied to those making over $25 million a year, or couples who have over $50 million in combined income.
I strongly support extending the tax relief for families and small businesses. My vote against this bill stems primarily from the harmful impact it will have on Medicaid, affecting low-income families and rural health care providers like our hospitals and nursing homes.
— Sen. Susan Collins (@SenatorCollins) July 1, 2025
When asked about the recent poll by the Daily Caller, a Collins spokesperson pointed to higher approval ratings in a Pan Atlantic Research poll.
That poll was conducted in mid-May and surveyed 840 likely Maine voters, finding 49% of respondents viewed her favorably, while only 45% viewed her unfavorably.
Collins is plowing ahead win her reelection bid, despite the new numbers.
While she has yet to announce a formal reelection campaign, Collins said she is planning to run in 2026 and is encouraged by her strong fundraising results.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is already running ads for Collins, and a super PAC backing her has raised $5.6 million in the first half of the year.
Collins currently has $5 million in cash on hand and has raised a total of $6 million, according to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
Collins won her most recent reelection bid in 2020 against Democrat Sara Gideon by 9 percentage points, despite Joe Biden winning the state.
Maine is currently the only state that voted for failed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in 2024 and has a Republican senator.
Jason Savage, Executive Director of Maine GOP, told The Daily Caller that Collins has been doing a “tremendous job” and said her work has touched every community throughout the state— something voters won’t forget when it comes to the 2026 midterms.
The White House is reportedly having discussions about replacements for Collins should she decline to seek reelection, according to reports.
GOP Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and Joni Ernst of Iowa were the other Republicans to receive negative approval ratings in the Morning Consult quarterly poll.