The New Yorker: Politics And More

The New Yorker staff writer Emma Green joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the Senate race in Maine, where the Republican Susan Collins, who has served in the Senate for nearly thirty years, is facing off against the former state senator Troy Jackson. They discuss how Collins has leveraged her seniority—and her chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee—to bring considerable federal funding to Maine, helping her fend off Democratic challengers in the purple state. They also explore Collins’s reputation as a moderate Republican willing to break with her party on high-profile votes, despite siding with President Donald Trump roughly ninety-five per cent of the time, and ask what the results of the Maine race may suggest about two competing visions of a senator’s job. Will Collins’s focus on Maine-specific projects and bringing federal money home win out over Jackson’s focus on national issues such as abolishing ICE, Medicare for All, and protecting national abortion rights? This week’s reading: “Susan