By Ronald Brownstein | Updated on Jun 09, 2026 at 10:30 AM
Tuesday’s primary in Maine will likely compound the concern among many Democrats that they are poised to nominate a fatally flawed candidate in the state’s must-win US Senate race. But the voting will also illuminate the one thin path that could allow them to avoid that fate.
Graham Platner, despite all the controversies engulfing him , is on track to win the Democratic nomination to oppose Republican Senator Susan Collins. Platner may face some protest votes, but he still is likely to rout Maine Governor Janet Mills. Mills, 78, remains on the ballot but suspended her Senate campaign in late April after showing little energy and attracting scant support.
The results are sure to deepen the Democratic fears that Platner will squander the party’s opportunity to finally oust Collins, the sole Republican senator left in the 19 states that have voted three times against President Donald Trump.
Polls show that Collins and Trump are both weaker in Maine today than during her last reelection in 2020, which could allow even Platner to beat her. Yet the oysterman’s many vulnerabilities increase the odds that, as during that 2020 race , Collins could improbably survive in this blue-trending state.
The key group Platner must win overwhelmingly is the clear majority of Maine voters who disapprove of Trump. Collins has shown an ability unmatched among Republicans to hold voters who dislike the president, especially older women . In the 2018 and 2020 elections, the exit polls found that every Democratic Senate incumbent and challenger nationwide won at least 89% of voters who disapproved of Trump — except in Maine, where Sara Gideon, Collins’ 2020 opponent, won only 71% of them .
That allowed Collins to become the only GOP Senate candidate during Trump’s first term to win in a state where more voters disapproved than approved of the president’s job performance. A University of Massachusetts poll of Maine voters released last week may trigger that traumatic memory for Democrats: It found Platner winning only 74% of Trump-disapprovers — and it was taken before the latest swarm of controversies.
“Collins may be the only Republican who can win that state and Platner may be the only Democrat who can lose it,” says Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist Democratic group.
That concern is understandable — but Democratic fatalism is premature. Democrats can’t force out Platner, but Maine election law allows the state party to replace him if he withdraws by July 13. And while all Maine political players agree Platner is currently determined to continue, the outcome of Tuesday’s crowded Democratic primary for governor could create a compelling argument for him to reconsider.
Replacing Platner is sure to remain a nonstarter for his supporters so long as the alternative is nominating Mills. (Mills, a centrist, has frequently clashed with liberal groups such as the Maine People’s Alliance and the state AFL-CIO, which both endorsed Platner and reaffirmed their support after the latest negative reports.) But after the primary, Democrats can rule her out and consider other options from the unusually talented field of five viable candidates competing in their primary for governor.
Former State Senate President Troy Jackson, a fifth-generation logger with deep working-class roots , has been endorsed in the governor’s race by the state AFL and Senator Bernie Sanders and would probably be the easiest replacement for Platner supporters to accept. Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (who has greatly raised her stature since she lost her 2014 Senate race to Collins) and former state House Speaker Hannah Pingree (who might be the strongest statewide candidate of the three) also have many liberal supporters. Once the gubernatorial nomination is settled — which could take several days because Maine uses ranked-choice voting — at least two of them will be available to replace Platner. Indeed, Platner has publicly stated that he listed all three in his ranked-choice ballot for governor.
(The two other gubernatorial contenders — former state public health official Nirav Shah, the nominal front-runner, and entrepreneur Angus King III, son of Senator Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats — are running as centrists and would antagonize Platner’s coalition if offered as replacements for him on the Senate ballot.)
My conversations with Maine progressive activists, who all asked to remain anonymous while discussing the sensitive idea of dropping Platner, invariably began with them redoubling their commitment to him and denouncing the negative revelations as the work of the “corporate media” and “corrupt Democratic establishment.”
But each offered only praise for Jackson, Bellows and Pingree. Maine progressives would never be happy about dropping Platner, but any of those alternatives would ease the sting — especially if the party gives Platner, as a condition for withdrawing, a big voice in choosing his replacement.
The merits of Senate alternatives remain fan fiction unless Platner decides to step aside. He clearly doesn’t want to. Nor is he facing defections yet from his progressive allies in Washington, including Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren, who seem more focused on beating Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer in the primary than on defeating Collins in November.
But if Platner faces more negative personal disclosures — or just bad public polls — over the next five weeks, the pressure will rise on him and his supporters to reconsider.
If Democrats don’t flip Maine, they will need to capture Senate seats in at least three states that Trump won by double digits in 2024. That’s a daunting task. And if Republicans retain the Senate, that will provide the GOP two more years to confirm younger replacements for Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas (78 this month) and Samuel Alito (76) — something that would lock in conservative control of the high court for decades to come.
That’s a lot for progressives to wager on Platner, especially when there are alternatives who offer much the same agenda and priorities — without the debilitating personal baggage.
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