Republican senator and long-time Donald Trump critic Susan Collins of Maine doesn’t plan to vote for her party’s nominee for president, and will instead write primary runner-up Nikki Haley’s name on her ballot.
Collins, who voted to convict Trump on impeachment for his role in the January 6 riots in 2021, reaffirmed her stance that she couldn’t vote for him again.
“I will not be voting for either candidate. I am going to write in Nikki Haley’s name," she said on Friday, speaking to a Maine photojournalist. "She’s my choice, and that’s how I’m going to express it."
The senator’s more moderate stance than her conservative colleagues on issues like abortion and environmental regulations has earned her criticism from the ultra-right wing of her own party, including from Trump. Still, Collins voted with the GOP 89% of the time in 2020.
Collins, who said she wouldn’t vote for Trump back in January, said she wasn’t surprised that he clinched the nomination a third time.
“I don’t think it should surprise anyone,” she said on his nomination, per the Hill.
The senator resides in Maine’s second congressional district, one of only two states which split their electoral votes. The second congressional district went for Trump in 2020 by a seven-point margin, a slimmer breadth of support than Collins’s re-election in the same race.
Collins has declined to share her 2020 choice with multiple outlets, but said ahead of the 2016 race that she wouldn’t vote for Trump in that election.
Though Haley herself has vowed to vote for former Trump, despite her snub from the party’s convention, she stopped short of endorsing him, saying back during the primary that she felt “no need to kiss the ring.”
