Sen. Susan Collins is an endangered Republican. Impeachment could make her more so.

The Maine lawmaker has a reputation as a moderate, but some say there's no room in the middle when it comes to removing Trump.

Oct. 6, 2019, 7:09 AM EDT / Updated Oct. 6, 2019, 7:17 AM EDT
By Alex Seitz-Wald

FRYEBURG, Maine — Susan Collins has built a brand as a moderate senator who isn't afraid to buck her party. But the Maine Republican is now facing her toughest challenge yet as she prepares to run for a fifth term in a blue state — the potential impeachment of a president she didn't vote for.

While Maine's GOP chairwoman dismissed the Ukraine scandal as "another witch hunt," Collins on Saturday called Trump's public request to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden "completely inappropriate." But Collins has said she can't take a position on impeachment because she might be asked to serve as essentially a juror during a possible trial in the Senate.

"It's inappropriate for me to reach conclusions about evidence or to comment on the proceedings in the House," she said recently.

Collins, who is one of Democrats' top targets in 2020 as they try to flip the GOP-controlled Senate, risks angering the Republican base by criticizing Trump and not defending him from the impeachment inquiry.

"She needs to not be a traitor to her own party," Jenny Foster, wearing a "Trump 2020: Make Liberals Cry Again" sweatshirt, said on Saturday outside the horse-pulling barn at a fair in Fryeburg.

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