A crowdfunding website where activists have been raising money to defeat Sen. Susan Collins in 2020 was inundated with pledges Friday afternoon, after the Maine Republican announced she would support Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court.
By 3:55 p.m., the site had crashed, apparently overwhelmed.
"Senator Susan Collins has people more motivated than we've ever seen before," Crowdpac tweeted. "Hold tight, we'll be back shortly."
The site was back online a little less than two hours later. As of Saturday night, the campaign that vows to support Collins' future opponent had surpassed $3 million -- not an insignificant amount for a political race in a state with 1.3 million people.
A group of liberal activists began the campaign last month to pressure Collins, a key swing vote in Kavanaugh's nomination, to vote against President Donald Trump's nominee. The idea was that if Collins voted no, then donations would not be withdrawn from donors. If she voted yes, then the pledges would fund the campaign of whoever wins Maine's Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in two years.
The Maine People's Alliance, Mainers for Accountable Leadership and activist Ady Barkan have doubled their original goal to $4 million.
As the pledges poured in Friday, yet another unusual series of events in these hyperpartisan times unfolded on social media: an online crowdsourcing effort to find a candidate and campaign staff to challenge Collins.
Jenna Lowenstein, a Democratic digital strategist who worked for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, said she had enlisted dozens of political staff members to help elect Collins' future challenger. In an online sign-up sheet she had created, Lowenstein promised to send volunteers to the campaign as soon as there is one.
"Nothing like starting with binders full of women (and men) ready to take up the fight," she wrote.
A spokesman for Collins sharply criticized the crowdfunding effort, calling it an attempt at extortion.
"And anybody who thinks these tactics would work on Senator Collins obviously doesn't know her. Senator Collins will make up her mind based on the merits of the nomination. Threats or other attempts to bully her will not play a factor in her decision making whatsoever," Annie Clark said in a statement before the senator announced her support for Kavanaugh.
One ethics expert told The Washington Post that the crowdfunding campaign may violate federal bribery statutes, which prohibit giving or offering anything of value to government officials in exchange for any acts or votes.
Marie Follayttar, co-director of Mainers for Accountable Leadership, denounced bribery accusations.
"The idea of Susan Collins attacking an effort by 35,000 small dollar donors as bribery is politics at its worst. Thousands of Mainers are trying desperately to tell her that she needs to protect abortion access and critical healthcare coverage across the country by voting 'no' on Kavanaugh," Follayttar said in a statement.
"If she doesn't, we absolutely have the right to prepare to unseat her given everything Judge Kavanaugh would do on the Supreme Court to make life worse for Maine women, Mainers with pre-existing conditions and Mainers who care about fabric of our democracy. Unlike Supreme Court judges, Senators do not enjoy a lifetime guarantee of their seat; they are accountable to the people," Follayttar said.
Collins initially expressed concerns over threats to the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling if Kavanaugh were confirmed, which would effectively shift the Supreme Court to the right. The senator also had been among the holdout votes amid an FBI investigation into sexual-assault allegations against Kavanaugh.
Information for this article was contributed by Seung Min Kim and John Wagner of The Washington Post.
A Section on 10/07/2018