Susan Collins is an American politician who has been serving as the United States senator from Maine since 1997 and is Maine's longest-serving member of Congress. She started off as a staff assistant for Senator William Cohen in 1975 before becoming staff director of the Oversight of Government Management Subcommittee in 1981. She was appointed commissioner of the Maine Department of Professional and Financial Regulation in 1987 and director of the Small Business Administration's regional office in Boston in 1992. Despite winning the Republican primary, she lost in the 1994 gubernatorial election, after receiving little support from Republican leaders because of her more liberal views on social issues. She was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1996, and has since been re-elected four times in 2002, 2008, 2014, and 2020. The longest-serving Republican woman in the Senate, she plays a major role in the Senate due to her moderate views.