Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) was greeted with vocal boos and heckling at a ribbon-cutting event in Searsport, Maine, earlier this week, as attendees took issue with her stance on Gaza and her perceived complicity with President Donald Trump.
“Shame! Shame! Shame!” Multiple people can be heard yelling in a video posted to TikTok by Searsport photographer Esme Freeman, 25, who uses the handle @hikemainewithme. Others sounded alarms about Trump’s Supreme Court nominees and the cuts to healthcare in the Republicans’ recent tax bill.
“Susan Collins WTF ‘Where’s the fight?’” one person’s sign reads.
“ I don’t think that the people of Maine are very impressed with her,” Freeman, who attended the event in protest, told HuffPost. “ I think we’re pretty done with her, and just the way that she has avoided the people, it’s not shocking that this kind of reaction came out.”
Collins has long faced criticism for her stance on Trump: while she voted against his tax legislation, she has also backed a number of his nominees, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Additionally, she has faced criticism for failing to hold a town hall for years. She is one of several Republicans who have received a hostile reception from constituents in recent weeks.
“ You could just tell that there was a lot of tension in the room and there was a lot of energy and people were not shy about letting it be heard,” said Freeman.
Collins spoke with some of the attendees after the ceremony concluded and downplayed their concerns.
“Demonstrators seem to be part of the political world nowadays,” Collins told a local NBC affiliate after the event. “It was interesting to see how much misinformation they had.”
Campaign spokesperson Shawn Roderick told Spectrum Local News, “Senator Collins respectfully listened to the protesters who showed up in Searsport, mingled with them after the event, and answered their questions.”
Collins’s office did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Freeman says that Collins’s support of Kavanaugh was a major “eye-opener” and adds that they were drawn to the protest because of donations she’s accepted from AIPAC, a pro-Israel organization. “ I just don’t support what’s happening overseas. And it feels like she does by accepting that money,” Freeman said.
The pushback toward Collins comes as she faces a newly announced challenge from Democratic candidate Graham Platner, a veteran and oysterman who’s running on an unabashedly progressive platform, including policies such as Medicare-for-all.
They planned to attend a Platner event later this week, Freeman said, and appreciated the candidate’s vocal support of LGBTQ rights.
Freeman added, “I feel like a lot of people in my life have gone from more neutral to disapproving of [Collins] over time.”