Democrats both nationally and in Maine face big hurdles ahead of 2026 elections that hold sizable implications for the control of Congress and the State House.
The party has been ceding ground in the voter registration battle to Republicans in Maine and other states and could see the Electoral College tilt further from it following intense redistricting fights across the country. President Donald Trump and his allies have carried out policy decisions that the party’s lawmakers have criticized but largely failed to stop.
High-profile U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races are set to feature lively primaries next year that will also serve as referendums on which direction Maine Democrats want their party to go. The contest to take on U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, ramped in the last two weeks after Graham Platner surged into the race and criticized the establishment wing of the party.
His plain-spoken populism has been embraced by progressives. Interviews with Maine Democrats of different ages and experiences hinted at an appetite for the party to focus on working-class voters, but disagreements remain on how to best do that.
“The Democrats are like a Super Bowl team that has lost a lot of big championship games,” Patrick McGowan, a former Maine conservation commissioner who lives in Fayette.
It’s a “bizarre twist” that Republicans can now claim working-class voters, said McGowan, who served in the Legislature in the 1980s and ran for the 2nd Congressional District in 1990 and in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in 2010.
The party needs to win back its original core of “people who got out of their beds and worked their asses off every day,” he said.
A common thread through conversations last week with Democrats from throughout the state was how Platner has captured initial energy and heavy attention after announcing his Senate bid in August. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders endorsed the previously unknown oyster farmer ahead of their joint appearance at a Labor Day rally in Portland.
Former Rep. Ben Collings, D-Portland, who backed Sanders in his two presidential campaigns, mentioned the economy and the need to highlight high healthcare costs and hospital struggles after Republicans passed Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” of tax breaks and Medicaid cuts.
“People want someone to fight and push back on all the crazy stuff going on out there right now,” Collings, who grew up in northern Maine, said.
Both Platner, 41, and former political operative Jordan Wood, 35, have said they will stay in the race even if 77-year-old Gov. Janet Mills gets in. Platner has not shied away from criticizing national Democrats who view Mills as their preferred Senate candidate.
The differences between the progressive side of the party and moderates embodied by Mills will create tension among however many Democrats join the Senate race.
That also holds significance for the crowded gubernatorial field of well-known figures as the party seeks to keep control in Augusta and chip away at Republican advantages nationally.
“I think it’s time for [the Democratic Party] to have a progressive stance that’s open and responsive to the needs of Maine people,” Meredyth Waters, a 21-year-old Brewer resident and University of Maine graduate who previously led Maine College Democrats.
Former Maine Democratic Party vice chair Peggy Schaffer bemoaned that Platner is “already complaining about someone putting their thumb on the scale.”
She and others recalled the tension between Sanders and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016, adding Maine Democrats should now point to “stark” differences between the parties while discussing solutions to state-level issues such as property tax burdens.
“Our democracy is in a little bit of extreme peril because of who is in the White House and who is in the Senate,” Schaffer, of Vassalboro, said.
Other Democrats in the state are more worried about candidate recruitment and listening to voters of all stripes. McGowan argued supporting the trades and job training is vital when “moneychangers don’t make anything that the world wants.”
“So many are getting caught up in this politics of demonizing individuals,” Rep. Laurie Osher, D-Orono, who grew up in Pennsylvania, said. “I moved to Maine knowing that if you need help, Mainers will help you. We need to get back to that.”
