Democrats targeting Susan Collins’s Senate seat eye Trump tariffs as weak spot
By Emily Hallas
September 26, 2025 1:56 pm
Democrats are accusing Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) of failing to deliver results for Maine when it comes to thwarting tariffs as the vulnerable incumbent lawmaker gears up for one of the most competitive Senate reelection campaigns nationwide.
Dan Kleban, one of several Democrats seeking to oust Collins ahead of the 2026 election, said President Donald Trump’s tariffs are “paralyzing” small business owners like himself in the state. Collins, he told Newsweek, “doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it.”
“The cost of living is just too damn high up here, and Senator Collins isn’t doing enough to bring relief to hard-working Mainers … She’s playing Washington, D.C. politics, and people are rightfully angry,” Kleban said in an interview published Friday. “People are just sick and tired of things, and I think they’ve reached a breaking point. They look at me as a breath of fresh air, frankly, someone that can deliver results.”
While Collins, a centrist senator known for challenging the Trump administration, has bucked the president multiple times on his tariff agenda, Kleban criticized her for not fully breaking with tariff policies altogether.
“Congress, they have the constitutional authority over the tariff power, and they need to take it back,” Kleban said, but Collins “seems to be OK with Donald Trump imposing tariffs unilaterally.”
“As a United States senator, I would demand that the Senate take back the power that they rightfully have, and so that the people have a say, the people’s houses have a say in when and how tariffs are imposed,” he added. “I’d get rid of them—plain and simple,” he said. “They have been applied willy-nilly, haphazardly, and have done nothing but inject uncertainty into small business owners’ operations.
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/congressional/3826619/democrats-targeting-susan-collins-senate-seat-eye-trump-tariffs-as-weak-spot/
