Susan Collins raises $2M in second quarter fundraising, surpassing 2014 reelection bid

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) raised more than $2 million for her reelection bid over the past three months, her campaign said Monday. 

Collins’s finance director Amy Abbott said in a statement that the fundraising haul marked the first time her campaign had surpassed the $2 million mark in one quarter.

Abbott added that Collins has already outpaced her fundraising for her entire 2014 reelection cycle. She has raised $6.45 million this election cycle and has $5.4 million cash on hand, her campaign said.{mosads}

Abbott said the campaign “fully expects to be outspent by far-left interest groups this campaign.” 

Collins is a prime target for Democrats looking to chip away at the Republican majority in the Senate. 

Sara Gideon, Maine’s Democratic Speaker of the House, announced earlier this month that she raised more than $1 million in the first week of her campaign to unseat Collins. Her campaign said 97 percent of those contributions were $100 or less. 

Gideon is the highest-profile Democrat to enter the Maine Senate race so far. She targeted in her campaign launch Collins’s vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who faced allegations of sexual misconduct and rape.

Collins’s vote last year to confirm Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court as he faced sexual misconduct allegations angered Democrats and prompted an intense effort to recruit candidates to challenge the longtime senator.

Other Democrats seeking the nomination to challenge Collins are Betsy Sweet, who unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2018, and Bre Kidman, an attorney.