Former National Security Advisor & U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on Sunday again teased a possible Senate challenge in 2020 to Republican Susan Collins of Maine, which Rice said she will decide on after the November midterms.
Rice first hinted at a possible Senate run on Friday with a tantalizing tweet in response to calls for someone to challenge Collins in 2020.
Rice's interest in a potential Senate run was motivated by Collins' vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh's nomination was scarred by multiple allegations of sexual assault dating back to his teenage and college years.
In an appearance on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, Collins dismissed Rice as a viable challenger:
"As far as Susan Rice is concerned, her family has a home in Maine, but she doesn’t live in the state of Maine. Everybody knows that."
Speaking at The New Yorker Festival in New York City over the weekend, Rice fired back at Collins, insisting that her ties to Maine "are long and deep," noting her grandparents' arrival from Jamaica in 1912 and annual visits to the home she now owns in the Pine Tree State.
“The last 20-so years I’ve been a homeowner in the state of Maine, so it’s not completely crazy.”
Rice said she was moved by "a sense of outrage and frustration that somebody who fashions herself a moderate centrist, and somebody who cares for equal rights and LGBT rights and Roe v. Wade and all of this stuff, could in a very political fashion not just decide to vote for Kavanaugh but do it in a fashion that was quite dismissive of the concerns of many Americans and many Mainers."
Rice added that "it was on that basis that I decided I would think about" running, the Associated Press reported.
Collins “put party and politics over her own stated principles" by voting in favor of Kavanaugh, Rice said. “I think in a way that I really regret saying, she has betrayed women across this country."
Social media is here for a Rice candidacy.
And many were quick to point out that Collins doesn't live in Maine either.
In 2009, Collins touted Rice's connections to Maine as a point of pride when President Barack Obama appointed Rice as Ambassador to the United Nations.
"The people of Maine are proud of what this remarkable woman has accomplished in her distinguished career of service," Collins wrote.
If she chooses to run, Rice would enter the race with massive financial backing. In August, a CrowdPac campaign was launched to fund a future challenger to Collins if she voted to confirm Kavanaugh.
The site crashed over the weekend from the volume of people trying to donate following Kavanaugh's confirmation. As of Monday, the effort has raked in over $3.5 million, most of which came from donations of $20.20.
