The emerging Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in Maine embodies a stark choice in a party trying to remake itself.
Graham Platner, a gruff 41-year-old oyster farmer and Marine and Army veteran, is running for U.S. Senate in Maine as a Democrat, faulting “politicians who sell us out” for long neglecting working people.
Gov. Janet Mills (D) is considering jumping in the race after a long, storied political career that dates back to the 1980s. At age 77, she would be the oldest freshman senator ever.
And a bevy of other candidates, including a brewery co-founder, have thrown their hats in the ring, some also calling for a new way forward for their party.
The emerging competition for a chance to take on Sen. Susan Collins (R), a decades-long fixture of Maine politics whose seat is expected to factor closely into the fight for the Senate majority in 2026, is shaping up as a key battlefront in a larger intraparty fight. Across the country, Democrats are wrestling with a choice between fresher faces and more established politicians as they work to regain power after their disappointing 2024 election.
The party’s predominant direction is not yet clear and has varied from race to race. In New York City’s mayoral race, Zohran Mamdani, a young democratic socialist, has generated Democratic enthusiasm with a campaign that defeated former governor Andrew M. Cuomo in the primary. Party leaders have rallied behind former senator Sherrod Brown in Ohio and former governor Roy Cooper in North Carolina, two key midterm Senate races. Unsettled fields in Texas and elsewhere could pit establishment picks against novices.
The primary in Maine, home to a Senate seat the party badly wants to flip, has become one of the starkest early examples of this tension — and the outcome may be one of the most consequential of next year’s midterms. Collins has cultivated an independent brand that has for years been hard for Democrats to puncture. This cycle, they see Maine as their second-best pickup opportunity.
Democrats “are looking for a winner,” said David Farmer, a Democratic strategist in Maine who is not working for any of the Senate candidates. “I don’t know whether it will be the outsider or the ultimate establishment candidate that will beat Collins, but I think that’s what will guide Democratic voters.”
Tensions are already flaring.Asked Monday by a Maine TV station if Collins has sufficiently pushed back against President Donald Trump’s policies, Mills said Collins is “in a tough position” and that she “appreciate[s] everything [Collins] is doing.” That drew a rejoinder from Platner, who said on X, “I do not appreciate everything Susan Collins has been doing.” Mills responded on Tuesday, saying while she has “serious disagreements” with Collins, she is not going to “come out here like some Washington politician and go on the attack.”
Collins has often drawn — and defeated — challengers from the establishment. That has left Platner and some of his primary rivals asking the same question: How about something new?
“We have two parties that want the voters of working people, but neither has done anything lately to earn it,” Platner said at a Labor Day rally with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont.), who has endorsed him.“No one is owed allegiance. Support must be earned.”
Platner’s campaign has been off to a strong start for a political newcomer. He has raised over $1.7 million since announcing his bid on Aug. 19, according to his campaign.
Platner is running as a fed-up everyman, launching his campaign with a video featuring him dressed in a hooded sweatshirt on a boat. Like Sanders, he faults the “oligarchy” for the state of the country, supports Medicare-for-all and decries U.S. military aid to Israel. That issue has been especially animating to young Democrats who want to see more action from party elders.
“Our taxpayer dollars can build schools and hospitals in America, not bombs to destroy them in Gaza,” Platner said at the Labor Day rally, in one of his biggest applause lines.
That rhetoric has already drawn scrutiny from the GOP. The National Republican Senatorial Committee responded to his Labor Day rally with a statement saying he was “cozying up to Bernie Sanders and championing his radical, anti-Israel agenda.”
Still, to some Democrats, the moment is ripe for a shake-up in the way candidates typically run.
“You need to do something different, you need to figure out how to get out the average Mainer,” said Bev Uhlenhake, a former chair of the Maine Democratic Party who is neutral in the Senate race. “Collins’s appeal and her relationships throughout the state of Maine are so deep because she has literally helped everyone. Someone needs to break through that and make the voters feel like they connect.”
While the Democratic primary has already drawn seven candidates, observers are closely watching to see if Mills enters the primary. While she would face questions over her age, she would bring a proven record of winning statewide and wide name recognition.
Mills told reporters last month that while she is “seriously considering” running for Senate, she is “not in any rush” to announce a bid and plans to make her decision by mid-November.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) spoke with Mills about the Senate race earlier this year, according to a Democrat familiar with the call, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation, signaling his interest in her potential candidacy. “We’re going to win Maine,” Schumer told The Washington Post in a statement when asked about his desire for Mills to run.
Emily Cain, a Mills friend who served with the governor in the state legislature, said she is skeptical that Schumer’s recruitment will weigh on Mills.
“Janet’s decision to run will not be about whether Chuck Schumer wants her to or not,” she said. “My feeling is she is on nobody’s timeline but her own.”
While Mills has been in politics for decades, she is not unaccustomed to the confrontational politics of the Trump era. She publicly sparred with him at the White House earlier this year over her state’s policy on transgender athletes and later sued his administration for freezing federal funding for Maine over the spat. The two sides reached an agreement in May to restore the funding.
Christina Reynolds, a former top spokesperson for Emily’s List, the influential Democratic group that supports women candidates who back abortion rights, said that while a candidate who is an “unknown commodity” can prove to be good, party committees and top party officials desire the certainty that a more established candidate brings to a race.
“Campaigns and elections are incredibly unpredictable. So where you can find ways to predict the unpredictable … you look for that,” Reynolds said.
To Dan Kleban, the co-founder of Maine Beer Company who launched his Senate campaign last week, now is the moment to run someone different against Collins. While Kleban heralded Mills as a “great governor,” he said he thinks national Democrats aren’t listening to the right people in their sole focus on her.
“Come up to Maine and listen to the folks that I listen to each and every day in the hundreds of conversations that I’ve had with folks across this state,” he said. “Folks are hungry for change.”
Jordan Wood, who launched a campaign in April promising to take on the “wealthy and well-connected,” said he and Platner were focused on “similar” problems and solutions but brought different backgrounds to the race. Wood is from inland Maine and has spent recent years working for Democratic causes in Washington. He expressed hope that people outside Maine would not determine the nominee, name-checking Schumer and Sanders.
Platner and Wood are among several Senate candidates nationwide who have called for new Senate Democratic leadership, a show of no confidence in Schumer. And Platner has suggested that Schumer’s conference should be willing to risk a government shutdown this fall if it means providing a check on Trump.
President Joe Biden’s decision to seek reelection last year at age 81 before bowing out after a disastrous debate performance has sparked impassioned debate among Democrats, some of whom believe the party needs to do more to elevate younger, newer voices. Other Democrats have argued that there continues to be value in supporting vetted, well-known figures who can also capitalize on the backlash to Trump’s second term.
In Maine, Democrats are confronting an opponent who is as well-known as any politician in the state. First elected in 1996, Collins chairs the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee and has become well-known for splitting with her increasingly Trump-dominated party.
She was one of seven Republicans to vote to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial. In his second term, she has opposed his defense secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth; spoke out against some of the federal spending cuts his administration has pursued and voted against his sweeping immigration and tax law, citing the “harmful impact it will have on Medicaid” in Maine.
While Collins voted against Trump’s signature law, Democrats believe they have a case to make that she has failed to use her considerable influence in the Senate to protect Mainers from his agenda.
Collins confronted a strong challenge in 2020 from Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon, who faced minimal primary competition, raised more than $70 million and consistently led in polls for the November election. But Gideon ended up losing by nine percentage points, making Collins the only Republican that year to win a Senate race in a state that voted for a different party in the presidential election.
Platner said he voted for Collins before — in the 2000s — but realized the “wool has been pulled over” Mainers’ eyes when it comes to her moderate image.
“She will always do what is best for the Republican platform, even when it’s so clearly going to screw working-class Mainers,” Platner said.
The Collins campaign scoffed at the line of criticism.
“This is typical of the disinformation that Democrats continue to spread about Senator Collins in their attempt to confuse voters and discredit the outstanding work she does on behalf of the people of Maine,” Collins campaign spokesman Shawn Roderick said in a statement.
