What Went Down On Health Care This Week

The Trump administration likes to play hardball with GOP senators. Trump has on numerous occasions called out individual Republican senators for not getting behind the GOP health care bill. Two senators who don’t seem that worried are Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. They voted against even starting debate on the health care bill. Part of that lack of worry has to do with the fact that neither senator is up for re-election in 2018. The other key part is that neither of them is really that reliant on Republican voters to win. Collins won her last election in 2014 by nearly 40 percentage points. She would have won even if not a single self-identified Republicans had voted, according to the network exit polls. Even in a somewhat closer 2008 re-election bid, Collins would have prevailed without a any self-identified Republicans. Murkowski is even more immune. She won re-election in 2016 over Libertarian Joe Miller by 15 percentage points. According to the SurveyMonkey exit poll, she too would have won without a single Republican voter. Back in 2010, she emerged victorious thanks to a write-in general election campaign against Miller, who was running on the Republican line. That year, she lost the Republican primary. If anything, Collins and Murkowski are probably more fearful of losing votes in the middle than on the right. And given how unpopular the Republican health care legislation has been among the public, it shouldn’t be too surprising that Collins and Murkowski have been among its most consistent opponents.