Collins will not vote Trump, but cast write-in vote for Haley

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) plans to cast a write-in vote for former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley to become the next president and will not vote for former President Trump, her office confirmed Friday.

Collins revealed her general election plans to a photojournalist for CBS and Fox based in Portland, Maine, on Friday.

Collins had previously indicated that she did not plan to vote for Trump in November, but her statement Friday received fresh attention coming a few days before the start of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

The Maine senator endorsed Haley over Trump in the Republican presidential primary earlier this year. She also voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial.

And she said in late March, after Trump locked up the delegates needed for the GOP nomination, that she did not plan to vote for the former president.

“I don’t think it should surprise anyone,” she said at the time.

Collins declined to say how she would vote in the 2020 presidential election, when Trump and Biden squared off for the first time.

She was up for reelection herself that year.

Biden ended up carrying Maine with 53 percent of the vote in 2020 but Collins still won reelection.

She is the only Senate incumbent to win reelection in a state that her party’s presidential nominee lost in 2016 or 2020.