With Donald Trump’s convention in Milwaukee shaping up to be a full-blown MAGA pep rally, prominent Republican opponents in the Senate say they plan to skip the convention altogether.
Trump’s critics in the Senate, including all four of those still in office after voting to impeach him on Jan. 6, are avoiding the Trump-focused vote set to begin Monday in a state crucial to Trump’s hopes of a White House seat.
One of those skipping the event is Senator Susan Collins of Maine, choosing to travel to her home state, which has long been a summer tourist destination.
“I don’t go to every national convention. I always go to the state convention,” she told DailyMail.com this week, as Democrats were in freefall over President Biden.
“I’d rather be in Maine. I have events planned. Who wouldn’t rather be in Maine?” she added, after dismissing the idea that it had anything to do with content.
Collins’ longtime partner in the Senate, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, is also opting for a schedule that allows her to stay ahead of political pressure.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins (R) will not attend the Republican convention. “I’d rather be in Maine,” she said.
“The senator will not be attending Congress this year, she will be back in Alaska,” spokesman Joseph Plesha told DailyMail.com.
Nor will retiring Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, a perennial Trump target. “He will not be attending the convention,” spokeswoman Paige Waltz said, without elaborating on his plans.
That came just months after Romney, his party’s 2012 nominee and a prominent Trump critic in the Senate, announced he would not vote for the man who has all but taken over the party, installing his daughter-in-law Lara Trump as co-chair of the Republican National Committee and dropping a position on a national abortion ban that could be a political liability.
“My wing of the party is like a chicken wing, okay? It’s a tiny, tiny thing that can’t get the bird off the ground. So we’re going to have to change that, in my opinion,” Romney told MSNBC in May.
It’s not just senators from cold-weather countries or those with multiple vacation homes, like Romney, who are refusing to join the thousands of representatives descending on Milwaukee.
Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy also won’t be there, and will instead be at home in Baton Rouge. “He’ll be spending time with his grandchild,” said his spokeswoman, Molly Block.
None of the Republicans indicated their decisions had anything to do with Trump, as the party heads into a convention with a new party platform that echoes many of the applause lines from the former president’s speech, with the second point being a call to “close the border and stop the migrant invasion.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (top right, above Collins) will spend the convention in her home state of Alaska, while Sen. Bill Cassidy (bottom second from left) will be at home in Louisiana
2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney is also skipping the convention
The moves come as Trump has expanded his control over his party and created a platform that reflects his campaign speeches.
“You know there was a lot of bad blood. She stayed too long,” Trump grumbled after Nikki Haley said she would not attend the convention and urged her delegates to support Trump.
“I cannot support former President Trump, and I voted to convict him on the second impeachment charge. So I don’t think it should come as a surprise to anyone that I cannot support him,” Collins said in late March, when Trump secured the nomination, even as she revealed she is “not happy with President Biden’s administration.”
Of the seven Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after Jan. 6, only four remain: Collins, Murkowski, Romney and Cassidy. Three others, Senators Ben Sasse, Richard Burr and Pat Toomey, have left the chamber.
On Tuesday, Politics reported that former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who was Trump’s last GOP presidential primary opponent, was not invited to the convention but is “fine” with it, releasing her 97 delegates and urging them to vote for Trump.
Haley “was not invited, and she’s fine with that,” her spokesman said. “Trump deserves the convention he wants. She’s made it clear she’s voting for him and wishes him well.”
Trump told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade was supposed to “look into” the issue, but was subsequently furious about the way Haley hung around in the race when it was almost over, a signal to his supporters not to let bygones be bygones.
“You know there was a lot of bad blood. She stayed too long,” Trump grumbled.