19th News: Jackson Record Of Fighting For Repro. Rights Garners Support From Former Collins Voters

PORTLAND, ME — Following the successful launch of his Women for Troy Coalition and securing the endorsement of Reproductive Freedom For All, Troy Jackson is earning the support of women across the state who are turning away from Susan Collins — pointing to her long record of selling out Maine women to vote with Donald Trump 96% of the time and confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court despite pleas of reproductive rights advocates. Following the fall of Roe v. Wade, while Troy was instrumental in passing the nation’s strongest protections and expansion of reproductive rights in Maine, Susan Collins said she didn’t regret her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh.

Maine women who once supported Collins say that she has lost their trust, citing the Kavanaugh vote and her acting as a rubber stamp for Donald Trump, the 19th News reports. Read the full story here, or see below for the highlights:

The 19th: Women who remember life before Roe are turning away from Susan Collins

The 19th spoke to five women voters over 60 in Maine, several of whom expressed concern about the consequences abortion bans could have on their descendants. None of them called abortion her sole reason for voting against Collins, but all highlighted the senator’s vote for Brett Kavanaugh, who played a critical role in the 2022 decision to overturn Roe, as a breaking point in their ability to trust her. Several said they believe she has prioritized President Donald Trump’s interests rather than those of the state.
“Susan Collins had convinced Mainers she was pro-choice. The Kavanaugh vote was very problematic for her, and her numbers have never been the same since,” Celinda Lake, a veteran Democratic pollster, told The 19th earlier this summer.
“It’s heartbreaking as an older person to think, this is what the last chapter of my life is going to be — watching the future my children have to live through become darker and darker instead of brighter and brighter,” said Elizabeth Leonard [...] Collins’ support for Kavanaugh has influenced Leonard’s vote, she said, but so has the senator’s broader voting record, which Lenoard described as being “hand in glove” with Trump.
Sarah Mahoney, who lives in Arrowsic, Maine, voted for Collins in 2008 — an election in which she also voted for Barack Obama. She was struck at the time, she said, by Collins’ record as a Republican who supported abortion rights. Voting for her felt like a vote for a less polarized country. Now, Mahoney, 65, is “mortified” by that vote. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe, she found herself thinking about what it would mean to be a young woman in Dallas, the city where she lived as a 20-something in the 1980s, and where she got a legal abortion.

###