Abortion rights group launches $250K mail campaign targeting Susan Collins

One of the oldest abortion rights groups in the country is launching a $250,000 campaign targeting Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) over her 2018 vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a member of the Supreme Court majority that overturned Roe v. Wade.

The direct-mail campaign is being launched by Reproductive Freedom for All (RFFA) and Senate Majority PAC, the main political action committee for Senate Democrats. It will reach more than 100,000 Maine households, targeting women who support reproductive freedom.

Collins is considered one of the most vulnerable Senate Republicans. She is running for reelection for the second time since voting to confirm Kavanaugh, but it’s the first time she has faced voters since Roe was overturned in 2022.

Collins is relying on her reputation as a moderate Republican who supports abortion rights. But the organization’s mailers will accuse her of breaking promises and lying about her vow to protect reproductive rights

The mailers will also highlight Collins’s support for over 100 Trump-appointed judges.

Collins told News Center Maine in a televised interview in June that she does not regret her support for Kavanaugh.

“I do not regret that vote. I do disagree with Justice Kavanaugh’s vote,” Collins said, adding that she was “disappointed” in it.

Kavanaugh was narrowly confirmed by a vote of 50-48, and some Democrats thought at the time that he could have been defeated if Collins had voted no, as that could have swayed then-centrist Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) to also vote no.

Polls suggest Maine’s longtime senator is running neck-and-neck with Democratic challenger Troy Jackson, who has made Collins’s vote for Kavanaugh a centerpiece of his campaign.

The effort is part of RFFA’s $23.5 million midterm campaign to mobilize voters and flip key battleground districts.

“Susan Collins’ lack of leadership and broken promises on reproductive freedom are a glaring vulnerability in this race. She promised to protect her constituents’ fundamental freedoms, and instead helped Donald Trump take them away,” Reproductive Freedom for All President Mini Timmaraju said in a statement.

Timmaraju was in Maine last week to campaign for Jackson after an official endorsement.

The group was one of many Democratic organizations that held back on endorsing a candidate until a successor to former Democratic candidate Graham Platner was established. Now, they are uniting behind Jackson.

“These partisan groups just don’t know what to do about Maine,” said Blake Kernen, a Collins spokesperson. “First, they had to rationalize supporting Graham Platner, who … had to drop out after a rape allegation. Now they are stuck with Troy Jackson.”

Kernen said Collins “has always been pro choice and a champion for Maine women. But because she is a Republican, the national groups continue to twist themselves into a pretzel to support these male candidates with terrible records.”

Kernen also pointed to a 2025 memo from Planned Parenthood referencing Collins’s long support for Medicaid and family planning services, highlighting her opposition to GOP efforts to “defund” the organization.

In August, Planned Parenthood’s political action committee said it was spending more than $600,000 on advertisements attacking Collins for her support of Kavanaugh.