Graham Platner speaks at an event in Portland on Monday where he was endorsed by Planned Parenthood Action Fund. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)

Maine Democrats are making a push to tie U.S. Sen. Susan Collins to her 2018 vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court — and the subsequent overturning of Roe v. Wade — ahead of a contentious race for her Senate seat this fall.

The Maine Democratic Party this week is launching an ad on television and streaming services featuring Collins’ comments to reporters earlier this month that she doesn’t regret her vote to confirm Kavanaugh.

The party is also running ads in the state’s two major newspapers, and will hold a press conference with reproductive rights advocates on Wednesday, the four-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning the federal right to an abortion.

On Monday, Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner was endorsed by the advocacy arm of Planned Parenthood at an event with supporters in Portland. His campaign released its first ad last week focused exclusively on the Kavanaugh vote.

Both efforts underscore an issue that Democrats have been promising for years to make a sticking point for Collins in her reelection bid — though how much it will factor into voters’ decisions remains to be seen.

“If you ask people if they’re concerned about abortion access in Maine, you’d get a majority (who say they are), no doubt,” said Dan Shea, a professor of government at Colby College. “But if you asked it as an open-ended question: Give me a list of 10 things you’re really motivated by this election season, I’m not sure abortion would even show up.”

In her last reelection race,Collins faced intense scrutiny for her 2018 vote, but she still managed to secure a nine-point victory over Democratic challenger Sara Gideon. Collins said in 2018 that Kavanaugh, who was also facing sexual misconduct allegations, had assured her that Roe v. Wade was “settled law” and that he respected judicial precedents.

Collins faced new backlash after the court ended the federal right to an abortion and turned abortion regulation over to the states in 2022. This is her first reelection campaign since the decision.

“Susan Collins wants Mainers to forget what happened after she cast the decisive vote for Brett Kavanaugh,” Maine Democratic Party spokesperson Kristi Johnston said in a written statement. “But Mainers haven’t forgotten. Her vote helped pave the way for Roe to be overturned and for abortion bans to take effect across the country.”

While there’s not a lot of money behind the party’s ad campaign this week — Johnston said it is “a four-figure buy” —officials say it is part of an effort to hold Collins accountable that will run through Election Day.

Thirteen states have banned abortions in the aftermath of the 2022 case, while another six only allow the procedure in the first six to 12 weeks of pregnancy, according to KFF, the health policy organization formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Asked earlier this month if she regrets her vote to confirm Kavanaugh, Collins said she did not, though she disagrees with his vote to overturn the abortion protections in Roe, the landmark 1973 decision that for decades guaranteed the right of women to choose to have abortions. Collins faced intense pressure as a swing vote in Kavanaugh’s brutal 2018 confirmation fight, which ended in a 50-48 vote in the Senate.

On Monday, Collins was asked on Fox News if her vote for Kavanaugh would be an issue in her campaign. She pointed out again that she disagreed with what she characterized as the court’s 6-3 decision in 2022, and said that with that margin, Roe would have been overturned regardless of Kavanaugh’s vote.

Democrats were quick to note that there were technically two votes in the Dobbs decision. The court voted 6-3 to uphold Mississippi’s law banning most abortions after 15 weeks, but Chief Justice John Roberts didn’t join his conservative colleagues in a separate vote overturning Roe. He wrote that there was no need to overturn the broad precedent to rule in favor of the Mississippi law.

“Susan Collins is lying through her teeth,” Platner said in an emailed statement Monday evening. “Roe v. Wade was not overturned 6-3. That is a lie. It was 5-4. Brett Kavanaugh was the deciding vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.”

Graham Platner speaks at an event in Portland on Monday where he was endorsed by Planned Parenthood Action Fund. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)

In addition, Collins noted that she voted for left-leaning justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who dissented from the majority in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization rulings.

And she said she supported a bipartisan effort to codify Roe v. Wade, but she said the bill was not brought to the floor by then-Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY.

Platner said he also supports codifying Roe v. Wade into federal law. But he criticized Collins’ for supporting other judges with anti-abortion rights records, and for confirming Kavanaugh.

“She may not regret her vote for Brett Kavanaugh, but there are a lot of Maine voters who regret their vote for her, and we are going to see the outcome of that come November,” Platner said at Monday’s news conference.

For Platner’s core supporters, the vote and court decision are key issues. Whether those are things that can persuade undecided and moderate voters in his favor is less clear, Shea said.

For the most part, voters’ top issues right now are affordability and cost of living, while the Kavanaugh vote and court case are “sort of inside baseball” for many people, he said.

But some voters also remember Collins’ public reassurances in 2018 that Roe was not in danger, and her suggestions that those who brought concerns to her were being misled and manipulated by progressive activists, said Rob Glover, an associate professor of political science at the University of Maine.

“I think it matters, and it will be top-of-mind for voters,” Glover said. “And I think the Platner campaign and its allies are going to do everything they can to ensure it is top-of-mind for voters.” 

At the same time, Maine strengthened its abortion laws in the wake of the Dobbs decision, so the court’s ruling has not had a particular impact here — something Collins has noted.

In 2023, Gov. Janet Mills, who launched a campaign against Collins last year but later suspended her efforts, signed a historic law expanding abortion access and creating what advocates said at the time was one of the strongest abortion rights laws in the country.

A spokesperson for Collins’ campaign accused Planned Parenthood leaders of “becoming more and more partisan” every election year in response to the event with Platner Monday. They pointed to a memo the group released in May of last year describing Collins as having “a long record of supporting family planning programs.”

The memo pointed to Collins’ 2022 co-sponsoring of a codification of Roe v. Wade, issues she raised last year over a budget resolution that would have resulted in Medicaid cuts and a statement she made in 2017 saying it “made no sense” to eliminate all federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

Asked about the memo Monday, Alexis McGill Johnson, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said the group has worked with Collins in the past.

“But when we’ve asked her to make the hard decision, she has demurred, and that is not acceptable,” McGill Johnson said.

This report contains material from the Associated Press.