Yet ICE has also become intensely polarizing since an officer fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis earlier this month, raising GOP fears that a debate over the department and its conduct could jeopardize the reelection prospects of Collins, the only Republican to hold statewide office in Maine. Collins has not yet announced a bid for what would be her sixth term in office, but has repeatedly said she plans to run.

“The ICE stuff is bad,” said one Republican operative involved in Senate campaigns, requesting anonymity to speak candidly about the race. “Any conversation about the border, which is very popular, is now getting roped in with conversations about ICE, which is not popular, and so that’s defining their entire immigration agenda.”

EX-NFL REPORTER LAUNCHES GOP SENATE RUN AMID MINNESOTA ICE PROTESTS

The response from Collins has been to reiterate her support for deporting criminal illegal immigrants, and in a Wednesday night statement, she joined the administration in urging protesters not to get in the way of law enforcement operations, alluding to the altercation with ICE that contributed to the death of Renee Good in Minneapolis.

Yet punctuating Collins’s statement were a number of qualifiers that hinted at her reservations about the surge, and days earlier, she questioned the “rationale” for sending in the sort of large-scale force that has stoked controversy elsewhere. On their first day, ICE agents arrested more than 50 people as part of what the agency is calling “Operation Catch of the Day.”

Collins’s remarks mirror the approach she has taken since the beginning of Trump’s political career, backing her party but creating enough daylight to succeed in a blue state the president lost by 7 points in 2024. She voiced support for legal immigrants in Maine, some of whom have been swept up in Trump’s raids, and more guardrails on officer conduct, touting the money for body cameras and de-escalation training she is helping usher through Congress.

“At this time of heightened tensions, these steps could help improve trust, accountability, and safety,” she said.

Still, Democrats clearly see the operation as a political liability for Republicans and are painting Collins, the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, as an enabler of what they say is a “rogue” agency. In particular, Democrats are pointing to her votes on ICE funding and her decision last year to help confirm Kristi Noem, who leads the Department of Homeland Security. 

“Senator Susan Collins has had multiple opportunities to stand up to Donald Trump to protect Maine by demanding accountability for ICE, and each time, she has failed to act,” Lauren French, the communications director for Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic outside group, said in a statement.

“Instead of using her position to deliver, she continues to toe the party line, which has resulted in chaos in the streets of Maine,” French added. “When push comes to shove, Susan Collins is all talk and no action. Her repeated expressions of ‘concern’ carry no weight, no clout, and no consequences.”

Those sorts of attacks have failed to pierce Collins’s reputation as an independent-minded senator in the past. Though the polls consistently showed her trailing in 2020, she managed to pull off a shock 9-point victory, even with Trump on the ballot and controversial votes for nominees including Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

For that reason, Senate Republicans are desperate for Collins to run again and have committed tens of millions to backing her. Yet Trump, who demands unflinching loyalty from GOP lawmakers, has shown less concern for her reelection and little tolerance for the times when she breaks with him on policy.

He complained about her opposition to his signature tax law, urging Republicans to “vote the exact opposite” of her last year, and went so far as to say she “should never be elected to office again” this month after she joined four other Senate Republicans rebuking his handling of military action in Venezuela.

JULIA LETLOW, ENDORSED BY TRUMP, LAUNCHES SENATE CHALLENGE TO BILL CASSIDY

In the case of ICE, Trump is gladly picking a fight with Janet Mills (D-ME), the term-limited governor who is challenging Collins for her Senate seat, whether it has political ramifications for Republicans or not.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, claimed Wednesday that “Governor Mills and her fellow sanctuary politicians in Maine have made it abundantly clear that they would rather stand with criminal illegal aliens than protect law-abiding American citizens.”

Mills, for her part, has accused ICE of “reckless” conduct, promising state officials will not “turn a blind eye” to tactics she claimed were violating the rule of law.

Republicans are not uniformly convinced the fight over ICE is a loser politically. In a midterm year, Collins needs to turn out some of the 46% of Maine voters who backed the president, with illegal immigration serving as one of the biggest motivating factors to his base.

“I think that it helps Republican turnout more than Democrat turnout, just because Democrat turnout — we already expect to be pretty juiced for the midterm,” said Bob Salera, a GOP strategist and former staffer for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

There’s also the possibility that ICE’s conduct fails to materialize as a significant campaign issue for Democrats. Salera noted that Minnesota has repeatedly been an epicenter of liberal activism, including the George Floyd protests in 2020. By contrast, Maine is a sparsely populated state and less blue than other parts of New England.

“I doubt Maine turns into the chaos that you’re seeing in Minneapolis,” Salera said. “Just because Minneapolis has been, you know, kind of ground zero for this kind of protest chaos for half a decade now, Maine is not like that. Maine’s a sleepy kind of New England state that the residents are not out in the streets, burning things and attacking cops and ICE agents.”

The risk for Mills is that her leadership will come into question if protests do get out of hand, as they have in Minnesota for Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN). She is also facing a pull to the left from Graham Platner, an oyster farmer challenging her for the Democratic nomination. On Thursday, he suggested her words were lip service to the base and that she was not serious about challenging ICE.

“We need to actually fight back. That means organizing. It means showing up in the streets. It means holding ICE and this administration accountable,” Platner said, announcing that he would join protesters in Maine on Saturday.

The question of ICE’s conduct is otherwise a safe one for both Mills and Platner to navigate. In polling, Democrats are virtually unanimous in their view of ICE, with 94% disapproving of its conduct in a national Quinnipiac poll this month.

Republicans, meanwhile, are less united, with 84% supporting ICE’s actions and, more concerning for Collins, independents breaking toward Democrats by a sizable margin of 64% to 33%. 

WHERE 2028 DEMOCRATS STAND ON ABOLISHING ICE

Collins cannot afford to alienate Trump supporters, meaning she needs to protect against a wider split with Trump on his immigration agenda. Yet if she fails to offer some measure of pushback on ICE, she risks losing the big-tent coalition that has rewarded her with a three-decade career in the Senate.

“Like, where’s the middle ground where you make enough people happy, and where’s the middle ground where you just end up pissing everybody off?” the GOP operative said of the predicament facing Collins. “That’s the challenge of a Republican running in Maine.”