Yet Senator Susan Collins, who recently voted to give ICE $70 billion in funding with zero reforms, is now trying to mitigate the issue as a liability or even turn it in her favor. And I fear this is something that Democrats—who almost certainly must defeat Collins to win the Senate—have to take seriously.
Collins’s effort to take credit for this is ridiculous. She voted for the aforementioned no-strings-attached $70 billion, which will supercharge ICE’s paramilitary operations in countless awful ways. She also voted against an amendment in early June that would have required bodycams. The commitment she’s secured from ICE is a joke in comparison to all she’s done to empower it.
Here’s why this is a concern: It’s exactly the sort of tactic that has made Collins a wily, resilient survivor in the Democratic-leaning state of Maine. Gestures just like it have persuaded many Mainers that she’s independent of the national party and Donald Trump and, importantly, that she fights for the state.
If you want to know how Collins keeps getting reelected in a state that Donald Trump lost by seven points in 2024, one that no Republican presidential candidate has carried since George H.W. Bush in 1988, take a gander at those press clippings for a clue.
What’s more, Democrats assure me they take seriously the need to prevent Collins from turning the tables on ICE in any way. They say Collins is already in deep trouble on inflation and health care, issues that will drive the race. They doubt Collins can use ICE bodycams to establish her independence in the face of those other overwhelming problems. Even if she tries, they say, it will only remind people of her votes to empower ICE.
Put it this way: It’s not hard to imagine ads from the Collins campaign addressing ICE appearing on Mainers’ televisions before Democratic ones do. Such an ad would not be all about ICE. But it might highlight her move on bodycams as a bullet point among others establishing her “independence.”
All of which has bearing on the interminable argument among Democrats over how hard to lean into ICE and immigration. Democrats should stick to kitchen table issues instead, we keep hearing, since voters care about them more (or worse, they should avoid immigration entirely because it automatically favors Trump). But the Maine race underscores why this sort of advice is mostly useless.
This issue is ripe for taking on aggressively. A new CNN poll finds that Americans say ICE makes our cities less safe by a 20-point margin. It finds that only 39 percent approve of Trump’s handling of immigration, versus 61 percent disapproving—a 22-point deficit. Among independents, that’s a staggering 34–66.
Jackson, the Democratic challenger, is for abolishing ICE, and it’s unclear how that will play with moderates. But it’s good that he’s already willing to take ICE very aggressively. Midterms are referendums on the party in power. Trump and ICE are both hideously unpopular. Democrats should proceed as if that presents an opportunity—because it does.
It’s plausible—or even likely—that Democrats will figure out how to foil this scheme. Still, the problem is absolutely worth worrying about and thinking through right now. As we’ve already seen, Collins is very, very good at this sort of political alchemy. Democrats should think seriously about putting real money into thwarting it.
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