EXCLUSIVE: Collins pits record built in Maine potato fields against Platner's 'angry rhetoric'

EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, learned hard work in the dirt. 

When she was 10 years old, like several other children in Caribou, Maine, she left school to pick potato fields to aid farmers with the harvest deep in potato country in Aroostook County, dubbed "The County" by locals. 

"I remember my mother saying to me when I was going to pick for the first time at age 10, saying, 'Now, Susan, this is really hard, back-breaking work, but you cannot quit.
The farmers are depending on you, and you can't let them down,'" Collins told Fox News Digital. "And those words have always stayed with me." 

It's that work ethic born in her hometown of Caribou, molded by her parents' separate stints as mayor of the small town in the county that helped shape her into the political titan she is today, propelling her to a record 10,000th straight vote in the Senate and a gavel atop the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee.

"I am surprised that [Gov. Janet Mills] is not my opponent," Collins said. "That's what I would have predicted, particularly given the very serious allegations against Graham Platner. Plus, his own words over many years, including recently. So, I think that he has a lot of questions to answer, but I do take him very seriously as a candidate." 

During his acceptance speech earlier this week, he accused her of being "just as spineless and corrupt as the establishment she now serves."

Collins, who is no stranger to heated campaigns, argued that her ability to produce results was a better metric for Mainers.

"I think when people look at the accomplishments and results that I've delivered for the people of Maine, that the contrast is enormous," Collins said. "And angry rhetoric does not produce results." 

And Schumer, who has spent years trying to defeat her, hopes to seize the opportunity in this cycle, even with a candidate who was not his first choice. 

"To me, this is déjà vu all over again," Collins said, noting that, six years ago, Schumer and Democrats spent over $160 million to defeat her. 

Collins contended, "Democratic leaders always distort my record," adding that when she voted to advance Trump's "big, beautiful bill" last year, it was so she and others could modify the bill. She ultimately voted against the final product but scored a $50 billion rural hospital fund nonetheless. 

"If we can't get on the bill, I can't help fix that," Collins said.

And on Kavanaugh, Collins noted that she disagreed with how he voted on Roe v. Wade, but that she also voted "for people who voted on the other side of that decision." 


"I voted for Sonia Sotomayor. I voted for Elena Kagan. I voted for Justice Jackson," Collins said. "And that always seems to get left out."

She doesn't vote in lockstep with Trump, either, who recently said that Collins was "not my best friend at all" but was a "sane woman." That prompted a laugh from the longtime lawmaker, who noted, "I've worked with five different presidents, and I have never agreed with a single one of them on every issue." 

"I know that there's some people who want me to oppose President Trump, just because he's President Trump, and that's not how I operate," Collins said. "I look at each individual issue and then make my decision. And based on whether it's helpful to the state of Maine, and improves the lives of families in the state of Maine."