Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is one of the growing number of battleground Republican candidates who have decided against attending next week’s inaugural Republican midterm convention in Dallas before November’s elections. “She won’t be at the…
Page A2From§Eachthe wee small hours edition — 1 September 2026
House Speaker backs a colleague's reelection despite abuse allegations while a senator skips the party's own midterm convention.
As it ran on the front
The Speaker's decision to back Max Miller's reelection is not complicated, and anyone reading it as complicated is bringing their own agenda to a simple story about party loyalty. Allegations are allegations. Endorsements are endorsements. These are two different categories of thing, and the fact that they're both true about the same person at the same time doesn't mean — well, it means they're both true about the same person at the same time, but it doesn't mean the Speaker is choosing one over the other, he's just doing his job, which is backing his members, which is what Speakers do, full stop.
Did I say 'full stop'? Let me not say full stop. There's more to it than that. The point is, an allegation is not a conviction, and a reelection bid is not a referendum on any specific allegation, it's a referendum on a whole term, a whole record, and Max Miller has a record, and the Speaker is backing the record. I want to be careful here because I know how 'backing the record' sounds when the record includes this, but that's the framework, that's the actual framework being used, I didn't invent it.…
…(cont) Now, as for Senator Collins skipping her own party's midterm convention — that's a scheduling matter. Senators have schedules. This reporter is not going to sit here and read a scheduling conflict as a statement about party direction, that would be — okay, it might be a statement. Skipping your own party's convention during a midterm cycle, when you're a sitting senator in your own party, is the kind of scheduling conflict senators generally find a way around when they want to be seen at the podium. So it's a choice. It's a scheduling choice that is also a choice about attendance that is also, functionally, a statement, fine.
But those are two unrelated stories. One's about an endorsement decision, the other's about a calendar. The fact that they landed the same week, from the same party, going in opposite directions — one man leaning in, one woman stepping back — that's coincidence, that's just how weeks work, calendars are calendars, endorsements are endorsements, and this reporter is going to leave it there before he says something else he has to walk back.
“The Speaker backs a guy facing abuse allegations for reelection in the same news cycle a sitting senator can't even be bothered to show up to her own party's midterm pep rally. That's not two separate stories — that's the coalition falling apart from both ends at once, the loyalty test and the flight risk, landing the same week.”
“Every candidate deserves due process before an election, that's just how it works, the Speaker's backing the process, not the allegations — did I say 'the allegations,' I meant he's backing the candidate, there's a difference, I think there's a difference. And Senator Collins skipping a convention isn't a statement, senators have schedules.”
The receipts
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) affirmed he is standing behind Rep. Max Miller’s (R-OH) reelection campaign despite allegations of domestic violence and child abuse. When asked Monday if he supported Miller, Johnson said “yes,” and that…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.