Democrats saw Graham Platner as the key. The data said otherwise.
The now-defunct Senate candidacy had big assets and bigger liabilities.
Now that Maine Democrats have effectively decided on former state Senate President Troy Jackson to be their new nominee to take on GOP Sen. Susan Collins, where does the race stand? How is it different from the situation that existed before the final set of allegations against oyster farmer Graham Platner, who had won the party’s nomination with 72 percent of the vote, drove him from the race?
Platner was a big package, with plenty of big assets and bigger liabilities. On the asset side of the ledger, his skills as a candidate and the campaign behind him were unlike any that I have ever seen. In a one-on-one meeting I had with Platner on June 25, 11 days before a former girlfriend accused him of rape in stories running in Politico and on CNN, he seemed surprised when I commented that his campaign had taken off faster than any Senate candidacy I had ever seen. It was as if it went from a dead stop to 100 miles per hour in the blink of an eye.
It has been at least 20 years since we have seen a Senate candidate as charismatic; for the record, Barack Obama won his Senate seat in 2004. Platner recounted how his life changed in less than a month last July, between the time he was first approached to run for the Senate and his Aug. 19 candidacy announcement that went viral. Obama was 20 months into his Senate term before he first appeared on the cover of Time magazine (Oct. 23, 2006); Platner was only nine months into his candidacy before he made it (May 20, 2026).
Platner indicated that during the period after he decided to run and before his announcement, he was worried that Gov. Janet Mills would jump into the race and make his candidacy a moot point. But Mills didn’t indicate that she was going to run for another two months and, at that point, he was unstoppable.
The flip side was not just that he was a first-time candidate, untested and effectively unvetted, but also a problematic one. A string of warning signs popped up. Ill-advised Reddit posts and hints of inappropriate behavior should have been a sufficient warning sign for Maine’s Democratic base, but they were head over heels in love and not looking at the downsides of nominating Platner. They were not in the mood to listen to, let alone heed, warnings from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other national party figures that they were engaging in a risky business.
Prior to the last bombshell landing, the Senate race appeared dead even. But a close look at the crosstabs revealed warning signs: Collins was doing better among Republicans than Platner was among Democrats, and she was carrying the vote among men more strongly than Platner was among women.
In the June New York Times/Portland Press Herald/Siena poll, Platner led Collins by 2 points among likely voters, 49 to 47 percent. Among non-college whites, Collins led by 23 points, 59 to 36 percent; among college-educated whites, Platner was up by 37 points, 68 to 31 percent. Platner’s strongest region was the Portland area, where he led 67-29 percent.
In the only other quality poll taken in the state this cycle, the Fox News poll, also from June, the numbers among registered voters were pretty similar. Collins had a 3-point lead, 50 to 47 percent; Collins was up by 15 points among non-college whites, but Platner was up among college-educated whites by 37 points, 68 to 31 percent.
Platner was what many college-educated whites mistakenly thought non-college whites would like—a decent sign of how Democrats are out of touch with a group that they profess to represent.
When Collins was last up for reelection in 2020, her campaign, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and the Senate Leadership Fund super PAC were vastly outspent in the state by Democratic nominee Sara Gideon, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the Senate Majority PAC. Collins still won by 9 points on Election Night, even as the same electorate chose Joe Biden by 9 points.
The difference was primarily among independents. Collins won them by 11 points, 50 to 39 percent, in the Fox News/Associated Press, NPR, PBS, and Wall Street Journal Exit Poll, and by 3 points in the Edison Research Exit Poll for ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC, 46 to 43 percent. Biden carried independents handily in both polls.
Democrats are obsessed with turnout among their base when they should be more focused on persuasion of independents.
Watching the field of Democrats maneuvering to win the state party vote to replace Platner on the ticket, one got the sense that it was a group of middleweight contenders jockeying for a shot at a heavyweight. Now that Collins is chairing the Appropriations Committee, a big deal for a senator from a small state, she is a certifiable heavyweight.
Jackson, who came in third place in the gubernatorial primary, is extremely popular within organized labor, though this is not one of the stronger states for unions. While he does not have Platner’s personal baggage, he also doesn’t have Platner’s candidate skills. This does not mean that Jackson can’t beat Collins in November, but it will be a real upset if he does.