A question for Maine Democrats: Do you feel lucky?
Senate contender Graham Platner is about as untested as a candidate can be in such a key race.
Elections are about making decisions, weighing competing priorities, values, and considerations. Some electoral decisions are easier than others. As the House looks increasingly likely to flip from Republican to Democratic control, eyes naturally turn to the Senate, where Republicans hold a 53-47 majority.
Democrats need a net four-seat gain for a majority. If they win the 2028 presidential election, they would need to net three over the next two cycles, with a vice president breaking a tie. It’s difficult to see how they get there in either 2026 or 2028 without winning the North Carolina seat opened up by the retirement of Republican Sen. Thom Tillis and also beating Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the only Republican in the Senate representing a state that voted Democrat in each of the last three elections. Maine and North Carolina really are must-win states for Democrats.
Maine Democrats face a fateful decision in their June 9 Senate primary to select a nominee to take on Collins, who is seeking a sixth term. The primary pits Graham Platner, a 41-year-old Iraq War veteran-turned-oyster farmer and the harbormaster in Sullivan, Maine, against 78-year-old Gov. Janet Mills, who is term-limited.
The public polling is over the lot in this primary, most showing the race quite competitive. Unfortunately, Maine has a record of notoriously bad polling, as demonstrated in the 2020 Senate race between Collins and then-state House Speaker Sara Gideon. Public polls showed Gideon ahead for 10 months. At the same time, private polling by major national Democratic and Republican firms showed the race far closer, with Gideon struggling more than the public perceived even while outspending Collins by a wide margin. In a year when Joe Biden won the state over Donald Trump by almost 9 points, Collins defeated Gideon by a similar margin.
Basically, the combination of the Collins Senate campaign, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and the GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund dismembered Gideon with attack ads that she never effectively answered. The Gideon campaign, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC tried to return fire, to no avail. The advertising against Gideon was brutal, much of it not particularly fair, but in politics at this level, if you are denying, defending, and explaining, you are losing. Gideon never knew what hit her; witness the leftover money in her campaign account after the election.
Technically speaking, Gideon was not exactly a political novice; she had been elected to the state House four times before her Senate bid. But in her four state House general elections, the most votes she ever received was 4,002 in 2018. The largest total turnout in her races was a not-exactly whopping 6,044 in 2016, when both Trump and Hillary Clinton were on the ballot as well, boosting turnout. These were small-potato races, and Gideon in the Senate race was like a single-A baseball team heading into the World Series. To say it was a mismatch is an understatement.
While Mills has won two gubernatorial races by 7.7 points and 13 points, respectively, Platner has never sought so much as a seat on his town’s Selectboard. In the 2020 race, Collins and Gideon faced off in five general-election debates. Mills had three in her 2018 gubernatorial race and four in 2022. Platner has never been in one. This is the big leagues—no place for beginners.
Platner has already had to deal with news accounts of regrettable comments he has made on Reddit and other social media venues, and an infamous (but since removed) tattoo with a symbol commonly associated with Nazi Germany. Yet none of these attacks have been delivered in paid advertising yet. He can expect incoming fire on these and other issues from every direction. How will he handle it? Who knows?
The two sides spent a reported $200 million in that 2020 campaign, an astonishing amount in a state with fewer than 1.4 million people and just two congressional districts. This time it is likely to be far more, probably in the $300-400 million range.
Can Democrats afford to take a risk on a first-time candidate with a very problematic background and questionable judgment? Sure, he is an interesting person and the profiles of him are good reads, but if the Senate is on the line, either this year or in 2028, is this the horse they want to bet on?
Yes, Mills is 78 years old, though you wouldn’t know that from seeing or talking to her. Anyone who thinks her record as governor isn’t reasonably strong is not likely to be someone considering voting for any Democrat for the Senate.
Based on what happened in the 2020 race, Collins would likely run multi-track messaging against Platner. First would come a positive message like, “I have delivered for Maine and now, chairing the Senate Appropriations Committee, I can deliver even more,” suggesting that the state can’t afford to lose her. In a small and relatively poor state, that is not insignificant. But the second message, with the most money pushing it, would ask whether Platner is the guy Mainers want representing them in the U.S. Senate, then hammer his questionable statements and actions.
A Collins-Mills race would feature Mills talking about what she has done for the state before making the pitch, “Somebody has to stand up to President Trump and for Maine. Senator Collins hasn’t, and I will.” For Democrats still upset about having lost both the presidency and the Senate in 2024, that message will probably resonate well.
In 2020, during the COVID lockdown, I watched the Maine Senate race on Portland television and in the papers. I don’t know and have never met Sara Gideon, but I felt sorry for her and her family getting pummeled the way she was, just as I would feel sorry for a Republican under such circumstances. It wasn’t a fair fight, but as President Kennedy once said, “Life is unfair.” That is where our politics are today: Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, if you are in a competitive state or district, you have to be ready for everything up to and including the kitchen sink being thrown at you, from every direction and 24-7. Democrats, do you feel lucky?