Susan Collins
R · U.S. Senate, Maine · Tier 1
Tier 1, “Firmly pro-Israel”
A reliably pro-Israel institutionalist Republican: AIPAC PAC-backed ($3,392,575 in the 2026 cycle, ~20% of her 2025 funds), co-sponsored self-defense/condemn-Hamas resolutions, was a lead negotiator of the Senate’s February 2024 national security supplemental, with its aid to Israel and its ban on funding UNRWA, and co-led with Lindsey Graham a May 2024 letter demanding answers on assistance the administration was withholding from Israel; she has chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee since 2025. Her AIPAC backing became a central issue in the race while Graham Platner was the Democratic nominee; Platner withdrew in July 2026, and she now faces Troy Jackson. In a Wall Street Journal interview quoted by the Bangor Daily News on September 30, 2026, Collins suggested that Platner had required his replacement “to be very anti-Israel, to accuse Israel of committing genocide,” and called October 7 “the greatest loss of Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust.” At her first debate with Jackson, on October 6, 2026, asked whether U.S. military funding for Israel should go up, go down or stay the same, she said “the current level is good” and that she is “a strong supporter”.
A clean 1 on appropriations leadership. As vice chair of the Appropriations Committee she was a lead negotiator of the Senate’s February 2024 national security supplemental, which she told the Senate “fully funds the budget request to support Israel in the war against Hamas,” including $5.2 billion for its missile defenses, and carries “an outright prohibition” on payments to UNRWA. In May 2024 she and Lindsey Graham wrote to the defense and state secretaries demanding answers on the assistance being withheld from Israel, and since 2025 she has chaired the committee that writes Israel’s annual military financing. She has voted against every Senate resolution to block arms sales to Israel, and in a Wall Street Journal interview quoted by the Bangor Daily News in September 2026 she suggested that Graham Platner had required her opponent “to be very anti-Israel, to accuse Israel of committing genocide.” Counter-case: a 1/2 if negotiating a bipartisan package as the committee’s senior Republican is read as an institutional duty rather than an Israel initiative.
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elect26 places 2026 midterm candidates on a six-tier spectrum, from 1 (most pro-Israel) to 6 (most critical of Israel).