‘I won’t be duped again’: Maine voters can’t wait to send Susan Collins packing

Maine voters have seemingly grown sick of Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) expressing concerns over President Donald Trump, only to back him at almost every turn.

The GOP senator has long been known as a moderate and won her fourth term, in 2014, with 68 percent of the vote, but the Trump presidency -- and especially her actions during Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation -- has exposed how flimsy that reputation actually is, reported Slate.

“I actually had this grain of hope that [Collins] would see all this information and hear all of this evidence and weigh all of these facts and come to the logical conclusion,” said Karin Leuthy, who researched Kavanaugh's case history and helped compile a brief opposing his nomination. “And when she didn’t, I felt really duped, and ashamed that I had been duped. Since then, I am no longer naïve, and I won’t be duped again.”

Leuthy and other activists presented the brief to Collins, who accused them of taking "dark money and spreading "outright falsehoods" about the Trump nominee.

“It was so offensive,” Leuthy said. “She just threw a blanket over all of us that opposed the Kavanaugh confirmation and called us all an angry mob.”

Collins ignored two weeks of nonstop protests outside her office in Bangor to announce she would support Kavanaugh's confirmation, and local activists were livid.

“Our faces fell and tears came into our eyes,” said activist Melissa Berky, "and I felt like somebody had just taken a knife and stuck it into the women and dug it in.”

Her bitter memory of that speech hasn't dimmed.

“One of our things we like to say is that women will never forget,” Berky said. “Women will never forget that vote and that betrayal.”