Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine publicly disclosed for the first time this week that she has a benign essential tremor, a neurological condition she says she has lived with for the entirety of her nearly three-decade Senate career. The disclosure follows recent video appearances, including her campaign announcement video, that brought scrutiny to her health as she seeks reelection in one of the year’s most competitive Senate contests.
“The tremor is occasionally inconvenient, and sometimes the subject of cruel comments online, but it does not hinder my ability to work and, as I said, is something that I have lived with for decades,” Collins said in a statement to The Associated Press on Thursday. She added that the condition “does not interfere” with her work and is not a neurodegenerative disease.
Collins first confirmed the tremor in an interview with WCSH-TV in Maine on Wednesday. The tremor affects her hands, head and voice, and she said she has had it since before she was first elected to the Senate in 1996. Over the years, the condition has been noticeable in her debates and frequent public appearances.
Age and health have become a significant undercurrent in the Maine Senate race. Collins, 73, is running for a sixth term in a seat Democrats need to flip to have any chance of reclaiming the Senate majority. Her likely opponent is Democrat Graham Platner, a 41-year-old oyster farmer and combat veteran, after former Gov. Janet Mills, 78, suspended her campaign.
Platner, who would be more than three decades younger than Collins, has spoken openly about his own health. He has a 100% disability rating from the Department of Veterans Affairs due to chronic pain in his shoulder and knees and a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder from his military service. “There are a lot of disabled combat veterans, or just disabled vets, at 100%, who still work,” Platner told WCSH last year. “It’s a very normal thing.”
The candidates’ medical histories have surfaced against a broader backdrop of heightened voter sensitivity to the age and health of public officials. Former President Joe Biden’s exit from the 2024 presidential race at age 81 and continuing questions about President Donald Trump’s health at 79 have made such disclosures more salient in national elections.
Collins, who chairs the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, has been a central figure in the chamber’s spending fights this Congress, often leading floor debate and delivering the GOP’s closing arguments. She has not missed a Senate vote in 9,966 consecutive roll calls, a streak that places her second in the chamber’s history.
The tremor she described is one of the most common movement disorders. Essential tremor, sometimes called benign essential tremor, occurs when nerves fail to communicate properly with certain muscles, according to the National Institutes of Health. The risk rises with age, though at least half of cases are inherited. While it most commonly causes shaking in the hands, it can also involve the head, voice or lower limbs.