Liberal activists say there's no room in Senate for centrists like Susan Collins

As the Senate emptied Saturday, the tension of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s confirmation finally lessening, Sen. Susan M. Collins went desk to desk picking up discarded copies of the Congressional Record from the day before.

They contained the official text of her 44-minute address to colleagues Friday afternoon — a speech that took the wind out of Democrats’ opposition, sealed Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation and, according to her colleagues, will go down in history as a masterful statement of centrist principles in a chamber where the political center has all but disappeared.

If liberal activists have their way, Ms. Collins will disappear from the Senate, too.

They had been counting on her to buck her party and vote against Justice Kavanaugh, a move that might have doomed his nomination. They had even attempted what some senators called a “bribe,” raising millions of dollars in campaign pledges that they said they would donate to her opponent if she voted for President Trump’s nominee.

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