Chuck Schumer doesn’t have much to say about Graham Platner. Don’t mistake that for a deviation from his years-long campaign to oust Susan Collins.

Schumer seems more focused than ever on knocking out the Maine GOP senator in the midterms after their epic clash in 2020, which punctuated a long-running competition between the two. In an interview on Thursday, Schumer called Collins “weaker than in 2020” and declared: “We’re going to beat Susan Collins and take back the majority.”

“First, she has to defend [President Donald] Trump, who is highly unpopular in her state. [Joe] Biden won Maine by six, but it’s now probably plus-nine Democratic. And she has to defend him all the time,” Schumer told Semafor. “Second, there’s still a great residue of resentment of Collins’s [Supreme Court votes] … she swears they’d keep Roe, and after the election they didn’t.”

He added: “Medicaid cuts have hurt Maine more than most any other state, because they have so much rural healthcare. So, you put all that together, and we’re going to win.”

Collins responded in kind in her own interview afterward with Semafor, touting bringing $1.5 billion in federal funding to Maine over the last five years. She blanched at the idea that she constantly defends Trump, declaring that “anyone who takes a look at my record knows that it’s a record of independence and bipartisanship.” She also voted against Republicans’ party-line tax cut bill, which included Medicaid cuts, last year.

“We heard the same song six years ago, exactly. And so I’m sure it’s going to be a hard-fought campaign. I’m sure that Sen. Schumer will pour hundreds of millions of dollars into it, as he did last time,” Collins said.

She said the large number of Senate Democrats thus far refusing to back Platner “shows discernment, integrity, and wisdom on their part.” Schumer declined to address the divisions in his caucus over Platner amid allegations of unsettling and intimidating behavior by past girlfriends. “I’ve said what I have to say about Maine,” Schumer said. He said he spoke to Platner after Gov. Janet Mills dropped out of the race but declined to get into the details.

The pitched fight between the two rivals for the Maine Senate seat is just one plank of Schumer’s plan to seize on Trump’s unpopularity and wrest control from Majority Leader John Thune this fall. It’s one of a half-dozen seats that Schumer is eyeing to take back his old majority leader job, up from four states earlier this year: North Carolina, Ohio, Alaska, Maine, Iowa, and Texas.

He declined to comment on Montana and Nebraska, where two independent candidates are running against Republicans. Some Democrats think South Carolina and Mississippi could eventually be in the mix as well. The party needs to flip four GOP seats and hold Michigan, Georgia, Minnesota, and New Hampshire to win back the majority.

Schumer explained that he’s “always planned on multiple paths, and I was always looking for new ways to go.” He would like some extra breathing room if he does get his big job back: He presided over 50-seat and 51-seat majorities, respectively, and wants to build a durable majority rather than a flash in the pan. His work as campaign chairman in 2006 and 2008 helped build an eight-year majority that endured the tea party wave of 2010.

“If you want to expand the map and want to build a majority and build a more permanent majority, you have to look at states that are not blue but are purple or even reddish,” Schumer told Semafor.

“And we spent a lot of time working very hard to find candidates that fit their states and really mirrored their states, as opposed to mirroring the national Democratic Party.”