U.S. Senator Susan Collins Needs a Lesson in Negotiating

Her Misstep On the Big Trump Bill Will Cost Maine’s Citizens Billions

Mere hours into the Senate’s discussion of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” one piece of math was clear: Republicans could afford to lose only three votes (Vance could break a tie to get a 51–50 victory) and still pass their bill. Two Republicans were a hard no — Rand Paul and Tom Tillis, who soon after disclosing how he would vote decided not to seek re-election in 2026 in part due to Trump’s backlash but possibly more nobly because hundreds of thousands of South Carolinians would lose their access to healthcare. So the result was up to Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. If they voted no, the bill was sunk, but if only one of the two voted no, Vance would break the tie and the bill would pass.

Collins and Murkowski held strong hands. How could it all have played out? If one voted no, then the other would hold a winning hand but if they were united, then the two would share the strong hand. They could negotiate with the Republican leader and get goodies for each of their states.

Susan Collins missed her chance to bring the bacon home to her state, a poor state with the oldest population. Senator Collins could have said to Murkowski “if I support the bill, then you have no cards to play, you lose and I lose. If I vote against the bill, then you hold all the cards and I lose. So let’s bargain together. We both vote for the bill and get what we both want or we vote against the bill and we get nothing. Trump needs this bill, so let’s make it clear to our leader Senator Thune that he gets both our votes or nothing.”

How did it all play out? They did not negotiate together. Murkowski voted for the bill and got a lot of goodies for Alaska and Collins voted against the bill and got nothing for Maine!