Maine Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins voted today against President Donald Trump's domestic policy bill, but the Republican majority still mustered the support needed to pass the proposal.
Collins — a key vote in advancing the bill over the weekend — was among three Republican holdouts on Tuesday that forced Vice President JD Vance to break a tie, 51-50.
In a statement, Collins said she supported the bill's extension of the Trump tax breaks from 2017. But she said its Medicaid cuts would cost Maine $5.9 billion over 10 years, threatening the sustainability of the program, its 400,000 beneficiaries and the rural hospitals that treat them.
"I strongly support extending the tax relief for families and small businesses," she said. "My vote against this bill stems primarily from the harmful impact it will have on Medicaid, affecting low-income families and rural health care providers like our hospitals and nursing homes."
She also opposed the bill's abrupt elimination of tax credits for renewable energy development, saying they should be gradually phased out "so as not to waste the work that has already been put into these innovative new projects and prevent them from being completed."
Collins joined independent Sen. Angus King and every Democrat in opposing the bill, but her vote on the motion to proceed instantly drew criticism from the Democratic party that hopes to unseat her in 2026.
"Instead of using the power and seniority she likes to campaign on to protect Mainers from life-threatening cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and other essential programs – Collins hung Mainers out to dry, leveraging her power to enable the passage of a bill that will devastate Maine," Maine Democratic Party spokesperson Tommy Garcia said in a statement. "Make no mistake: Susan Collins made the deliberate choice to advance this bill, and she’ll be held accountable for it in 2026."
King described the bill as "regressive and downright cruel." He said it will shift the costs of food assistance and health care coverage to the states in service of a tax cut for people making more than $400,000 a year.
"I call this the Great Maine Robbery," he said. "First, it’s going to shift millions of dollars to state budgets — which means Maine taxpayers will be left footing the bill for essential services like healthcare and food assistance. It will also likely result in the closure of rural community health centers and hospitals — although the health fund in this bill will provide some limited relief to Maine hospitals, it (won't) do anything for the thousands who will lose their health care under the terms of this bill."
The healthcare fund referenced by King is supported by Collins, but she said it was not enough to counterbalance the Medicaid cuts. Collins sponsored an amendment that would have doubled the health care provider fund from $25 billion to $50 billion, but it was defeated, 78-22.
King's criticism was echoed by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, who had previously warned about its effects on the state and the recently enacted biennial budget.
"The President’s so-called ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ – advanced by Republicans in the U.S. Senate – will take away health care from tens of thousands of Maine people, jeopardize our rural hospitals, restrict access to reproductive health care, slash vital food assistance for thousands of Maine families, and further drive-up energy costs that are already too high," she said in a statement. "The bill will dramatically shift costs from the Federal government to the State of Maine – costs that our state cannot absorb, imperiling our state’s balanced budget and the Maine economy."
She added, "President Trump and Republicans are going to hurt a lot of Maine people with this bill, especially those in rural Maine."
An analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the bill would add $3.3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade while stripping 11.8 million Americans of healthcare.
The bill now moves to the House where Maine U.S. Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden, both Democrats, have already voted to oppose the House version of it. Golden, in a statement after the vote, indicated that his vote would not change after the Senate enacted its changes.
"Maine’s entire congressional delegation — two Democrats, a Republican and an Independent — has now voted against this deeply flawed and harmful bill,” he said. “Mainers deserve better than a Congress that takes away their health care and saddles their children with unsustainable debt to fund tax breaks for the wealthiest people and corporations in our country. I am proud that Maine’s delegation stood against it."
