Ms. Collins revealed
her decision in an opinion column for
The Washington Post published Monday evening, saying that Mr. Trump’s
proclivity for bullying and invective made it impossible for her to support
him.
She said she believed having Mr. Trump as president would make “an already
perilous world” even more dangerous.
Ms. Collins is the
most senior senator to split publicly with Mr.
Trump, and her message of
censure could send a message to other Republicans that it is safe to shun the party’s
presidential nominee. She is one of the few moderate Republicans remaining in
the Senate and one of only two from New England, along with Kelly Ayotte of New
Hampshire, whom Mr. Trump, after some hesitancy, endorsed late last week.
Now in her fourth
term, Ms. Collins also led the Senate committee that oversees homeland
security, adding additional weight to her criticism of Mr. Trump, who has
strained to convince middle-of-the-road voters that he is prepared to serve as
the country’s commander in chief.
While Ms. Collins
described Mr. Trump as a person who would menace the country’s security, she
hit him hardest for playing on the country’s racial and cultural divisions in
the course of the presidential campaign.
Faulting Mr. Trump
for a “constant stream of cruel comments and his inability to admit error or
apologize,” Ms. Collins specifically mentioned his attacks on Gonzalo P. Curiel,
a federal judge born in Indiana whom Mr. Trump derided for his “Mexican
heritage”; Khizr and Ghazala
Khan, the parents of a slain soldier; and a New York Times reporter
whom Mr. Trump seemed to mock for a physical disability.
“My conclusion about
Mr. Trump’s unsuitability for office is based on his disregard for the precept
of treating others with respect, an idea that should transcend politics,” Ms.
Collins wrote. “Instead, he opts to mock the vulnerable and inflame prejudices
by attacking ethnic and religious minorities,” she continued.
A spokeswoman for
the Trump campaign did not immediately comment on Ms. Collins’s decision.
The rebuke from Ms.
Collins comes as Mr. Trump seeks to refocus his message in the presidential
race, emphasizing themes of economic growth and nationalism rather than narrow
political feuds with his own party. Mr. Trump delivered a speech on
Monday in Detroit pledging to cut taxes and renegotiate American trade agreements,
in an attempt to recover his footing after a debilitating start to the month.
Within hours of his
address, however, Ms. Collins and a collection of other Republicans had
answered Mr. Trump’s grand address with an embarrassing signal of rejection.
On Monday, 50
national security leaders who served in Republican administrations signed a letter rejecting
his candidacy. In recent weeks, Republicans including Meg Whitman,
a Hewlett-Packard executive and Republican fund-raiser, and Henry M. Paulson Jr.,
the former Treasury secretary, have broken ranks to back Hillary Clinton.
In addition to Ms.
Collins, multiple other Republican senators, including Ben Sasse of Nebraska
and Mark S. Kirk of Illinois, have said that they will not vote for Mr. Trump
under any circumstances. Several other lawmakers, including Senators Jeff Flake
of Arizona and Mike Lee of Utah, have withheld their support from Mr. Trump
without saying definitively that they will never cast their ballots for him.
Ms. Collins’s
opposition will probably make it far more difficult for Mr. Trump to compete in
Maine, where he campaigned last week in an effort to scoop up at least one
Electoral College vote. Ms. Collins is a popular figure there and her
denunciation can be expected to land with force.
Ms. Collins did not
say whom she would vote for.
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