Outgoing Republican Sen. Susan Collins wants Mainers to know she sees nothing wrong with her behavior as a politician. Rather, she judges those who voted her out on Tuesday for being too angry^[1].

“Everybody ignores the fact that I voted to convict him in the second impeachment trial,” Collins said in an interview with The New York Times, regarding her vote to remove President Donald Trump from office after he incited an insurrection at the Capitol in January 2021. “What bigger break could there be? It is never enough. I want results and they want angry rhetoric.”

Indeed, Collins suggested to the Times that she did not think she would lose to Sen.-elect Troy Jackson, with both her, her staff, and Republican pundits across the country believing she would overperform her polls once again to win.

“We went all over the state and I’ve got to tell you, the crowds were huge, the reception was warm and the response could not have been better,” Collins said at an election-night event, according to the Times.

To be sure, Collins had won in tough election cycles before, including in 2020, when she overperformed her polls to pull out a shocking victory, despite that former President Joe Biden also won her state.

Collins and her team clearly thought this year would be no different. But the fact that she is shocked at her loss is a sign she isn’t as savvy a political mind as the media perceives her to be.

Oops.