Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) answers questions from reporters as she heads to the floor for debate on the health care bill on July 27, 2017. John Shinkle/POLITICO | John Shinkle/POLITICO Will Collins leave the Senate? Announcement coming Friday

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) will announce at a local Chamber of Commerce event on Friday whether she will run for governor — a decision that remains shrouded in secrecy and could upend the Senate political landscape.

The influential moderate plans to make the announcement during a speech she's giving on health care in Rockport, Maine, according to a source familiar with the event. The speech is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m.


Collins has wrestled for months with whether to leave the Senate to launch a 2018 gubernatorial run, and has given few clues about where she will ultimately land. Her Senate colleagues, particularly fellow moderates, have been urging Collins to stay, and senior Republicans said this week that they were completely in the dark about what Collins will do.

POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

One of a handful of moderates left in the Senate, Collins was first elected to the Senate in 1996 and is not up for reelection until 2020. Under Maine law, the governor would tap a replacement to serve out the rest of Collins' Senate term should she be elected as the state's chief executive. LePage is term-limited.

Because of her centrist politics, Collins has assumed an outsize role in contentious policy battles in the Senate, where Republicans hold a narrow, 52-seat majority and have been battling Democrats generally unified against major pieces of the GOP agenda. The senator opposed multiple iterations of the Senate GOP’s plans to dismantle and replace Obamacare, helping to contribute to the repeal effort’s demise.

Her exit could also hand Democrats another Senate seat. It would create a dynamic similar to that in 2012, when moderate Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) retired and Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, handily won election.

“In the absence of Susan Collins, Maine becomes a whole different place,” said Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), who served as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2014, the last time Collins was on the ballot.

But while fellow senators are urging Collins to remain in the Senate, they’re also sympathetic to her wishes to be closer to home.

“For people like me and Susan, our life isn’t here,” said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), a close friend of Collins who wants her to stay. “Our life is back in our home state. And I think that’s really a big part of it, too.”