Senate Republican Says She Might Vote For Clinton, But Probably Not, But Maybe

In response to Donald Trump’s racial attacks on Judge Gonzalo Curiel, GOP Senator Mark Kirk went so far as to un-endorse his party’s presumptive nominee this week, but another Senate Republican went even further on Thursday, suggesting she could vote for Hillary Clinton instead.

According to The New Yorker, Maine Senator Susan Collins told the magazine the upcoming election posed a “difficult choice” and she had to keep her options open:

Collins went on to say that she has not ruled out supporting Clinton. “I worked very well with Hillary when she was my colleague in the Senate and when she was Secretary of State,” Collins said. “But I do not anticipate voting for her this fall. I’m not going to say never, because this has been such an unpredictable situation, to say the least.”

I pressed Collins to make sure that she was leaving open the possibility of backing the Democratic Party’s presumptive Presidential nominee over Trump. “That is true,” Collins, who has been a lifelong Republican, said. “But I do want to qualify that by saying it is unlikely that I would choose to vote for the Democratic candidate.”

Collins, a moderate Republican who in the past has dissented from her party only to vote with them anyway, later reaffirmed her qualification, telling Fox News, “I do not anticipate voting for Hillary this fall.”

Still, that makes Collins quite a bit more flexible than party leaders like Paul Ryan, who has continued to support Trump even after condemning his comments as “absolutely unacceptable.” Ryan, it seems, is a man of his word, even if that word ends up being pretty racist.