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By Kevin Curry —

I'm Announcing My Sixth Senate Term With New Balance Running Shoes Because Nothing Says 'Fighting Trump's Excesses' Like Running Toward Another Six Years Of Enabling Them

I'm Announcing My Sixth Senate Term With New Balance Running Shoes Because Nothing Says 'Fighting Trump's Excesses' Like Running Toward Another Six Years Of Enabling Them
Photo by Michael Denning / Unsplash

"I'm concerned about the direction of the administration's immigration enforcement tactics." — Sen. Susan Collins, February 9, 2025, before voting to fully fund DHS without oversight restrictions

My fellow Mainers, after much deliberation and several thoughtful walks along the rocky coastline in my New Balance 928s (made right here in America, though technically now assembled in Vietnam with some American components), I am announcing my candidacy for a sixth term in the United States Senate.

I know what you're thinking: Susan, haven't you spent the last five terms expressing deep concern about Republican extremism before voting to enable it 87% of the time? And isn't this the perfect moment to retire with dignity rather than spend another six years furrowing your brow at authoritarianism while providing the crucial swing vote that allows it to continue?

To which I say: exactly.

You see, I have learned something profound during my thirty years in the Senate. The best way to moderate the Republican Party is from inside the Republican Party, specifically from inside the Republican Party while it shoots protesters in Minneapolis, repeals climate science, and deports college students for writing newspaper op-eds. Someone needs to be in the room expressing concern, and I have perfected the concerned expression. (My eyebrows can now furrow independently, which my staff assures me polls extremely well with suburban women who also feel vaguely uncomfortable but not uncomfortable enough to actually do anything.)

Take this week's news about the EPA repealing the 2009 finding that climate change endangers public health. Now, I want to be very clear: I am troubled by this decision. I have always believed in science, which is why I voted to confirm every single Trump cabinet member who promised to ignore it. How else can we have a robust debate about whether observable reality is real unless we give science-deniers equal governing power? That's just basic fairness.

Some critics—and by critics, I mean my own constituents who keep calling my office—have pointed out that being "troubled" while voting to fund the very agencies carrying out these policies is somewhat contradictory. But this fundamentally misunderstands my approach to governance. I am not here to obstruct. I am here to express mild disapproval while ensuring nothing actually changes. It's called leadership.

Regarding the immigration enforcement situation, I want to state unequivocally that I am deeply concerned about reports that DHS officers shot and killed two protesters in Minneapolis. I am also concerned about the memo allowing ICE agents to enter homes without warrants, which seems potentially problematic from a Fourth Amendment perspective, though I haven't actually read the Fourth Amendment recently so I'm just going off vibes here.

However, I will be voting to fully fund DHS without any of those pesky oversight restrictions that Democrats keep insisting on. Why? Because I believe in giving the administration the benefit of the doubt, even after they've already shot people. What if they promise not to shoot more people? We have to take them at their word. (We do not, in fact, have to take them at their word, but saying we do allows me to vote yes while maintaining my moderate brand.)

The case of Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts student who co-wrote a pro-Palestinian op-ed and faced deportation, is particularly instructive. I'm relieved the immigration judge rejected the deportation—this shows the system works! (The system only worked because a judge intervened to stop the administration from deporting a college student for writing an opinion article, which actually shows the system is fundamentally broken, but let's not get bogged down in semantics.)

Now, some have suggested that perhaps after thirty years, it might be time for new leadership. They point out that younger senators might have the energy to actually fight authoritarianism rather than just comment sadly about it. But here's what they don't understand: I have name recognition. Mainers know me. They know that when Susan Collins says she's "concerned," they can rest assured that she will do absolutely nothing to address that concern while maintaining plausible deniability. That's the kind of consistency you can't buy. (Well, you can buy it—lobbyists do, regularly—but you know what I mean.)

Moreover, I have seniority. Do you know how long it takes to build up enough seniority to be truly ineffective? Years. Decades, even. You can't just hand that kind of institutional failure to some newcomer who might accidentally accomplish something.

So yes, I'm running for a sixth term. Because if there's one thing this moment in American history needs, it's another six years of someone who will watch democracy crumble while saying "this is not who we are" and then voting to fund the crumbling.

Plus, I only just broke in these New Balances, and it would be wasteful not to get another six years out of them.

Though I should note: if Trump's policies ever personally affect me or threaten my reelection chances, I reserve the right to become briefly and performatively outraged before returning to my natural state of enabling concern.

This Week's Inspiration

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Week of February 03 - February 10, 2026

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