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IrelandCollins blames a "Trump tsunami"; Jessiah examines her voting record
Pondering Politics contrasts the defeated Maine senator's defense with voters' objections to her support for Trump and Brett Kavanaugh.
Pondering Politics
Story of Why this story? 1,267,954 views so far, and here is what is inside it.
DEFEATED Susan Collins BITTERLY ATTACKS voters
Things we can learn from the video
Press to jump
- 1:12A reported voter encounter illustrates how opposition to Trump affected support for Collins.
- 2:13Collins attributes her defeat to a "Trump tsunami" and cites her second-impeachment vote.
- 3:36Jessiah challenges Collins's contrast between delivering results and voters wanting angry rhetoric.
- 4:52Voter interviews identify Kavanaugh's confirmation and Collins's support for Trump as reasons for rejecting her.
- 7:11Jessiah uses Collins's Cabinet confirmation votes to argue that she enabled Trump's administration.
- 8:40He interprets Collins's emphasis on her appropriations influence as pressure over Maine's access to funding.
Susan Collins lost. The question driving Jessiah's Pondering Politics commentary is whether her response explains that defeat or overlooks what Maine voters were telling her.
Democrat Troy Jackson defeated Collins in the Senate election, ending a run that began in 1997. Jessiah builds his video around reported remarks from Collins and interviews with voters, rather than a new interview with the senator.
Reading from a New York Times article, he recounts Collins's encounter with someone who had previously liked her but voted against her to send Donald Trump a message. Collins describes a "Trump tsunami" and points to her vote to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial as evidence of her independence.
The remark Jessiah focuses on is her distinction between her priorities and those of her critics: "It is never enough. I want results and they want angry rhetoric." He argues that this dismisses substantive objections to her record.
Those objections become clearer in the voter interviews he reads. They include Collins's support for Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation and her alignment with Trump. Jessiah adds her decision not to convict Trump in his first impeachment trial and her support for several Cabinet nominees, arguing that the second impeachment vote cannot stand apart from the rest of her record.
The video has drawn about 1.3 million views. Its later section examines Collins's emphasis on her influence over federal spending through the Senate Appropriations Committee. Jessiah interprets that campaign argument as pressure on voters concerned about Maine's funding, before concluding that Collins should scrutinize her choices rather than blame theirs.
A Republican US senator for Maine who has served since 1997. She is the longest-serving Republican woman in the Senate.
More on Wikipedia ›A Democrat and former logger who is Maine’s US senator-elect. He previously led the Maine Senate as its president from 2018 to 2024.
More on Wikipedia ›A US Supreme Court justice nominated by Donald Trump in 2018. He has served on the court since October of that year.
More on Wikipedia ›A standing US Senate committee responsible for legislation covering all discretionary federal spending.
More on Wikipedia ›Published on Trari
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- Channel
- Pondering Politics
- Subscribers
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- Channel views, last 7 days
- 14,335,384
- Channel views, pace per day
- 4,787,845 (on a normal day: 1,248,334)
- Video published
- November 5, 2026
- Video views so far
- 1,267,954 (7 days online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 182,829 (on a normal day: 210,982)
The numbers
Here is the audience for the Collins commentary, alongside Pondering Politics' broader channel totals.
💡 Test your knowledge
Which Supreme Court justice's confirmation features in the voters' objections discussed here?
The voter interviews Jessiah reads identify Collins's vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh as a source of frustration.