Highlighting her efforts to fight back against President Donald Trump, Gov. Janet Mills officially announced Tuesday she will run against U.S. Sen. Susan Collins in 2026.
Mills, who is termed out of the Blaine House next year after leading Maine since 2018, considered a run for months. She is the preferred choice of national Democrats again taking on the difficult task of unseating Collins, a Republican first elected in 1996 who won an expensive 2020 race despite decreasing approval ratings in a blue state.
A potential general election matchup between the two women who have had a friendly relationship for years and served decades in public office would add intrigue to a race both parties already view as vastly important for the control of the Senate that Republicans currently control. Mills focused heavily on Trump in her campaign launch.
At age 77, Mills would be the oldest freshman senator ever elected and would be 79 when she is sworn in.If the Democratic governor from Farmington wants to defeat the Republican senator from Caribou, then she will first have to win a primary next June that already features several well-organized candidates pointing to her age and establishment support.
In an interview before Tuesday’s announcement, Mills pointed to her electoral success and said Maine Democrats previously nominated Collins challengers who are “untested and unvetted in statewide races.” That was a reference to former House Speaker Sara Gideon’s campaign against Collins six years ago as well as those of previous challengers to the senator.
“I think I can win this, and I think I’m the one who can beat Susan Collins, because I have a track record of winning and of delivering for Maine people,” Mills said.
The governor’s most notable primary opponent to date reflects the generational tension in the party. Sullivan oysterman Graham Platner, a 41-year-old military veteran, has drawn big crowds and rallies while raising millions of dollars. Other candidates include former Capitol Hill operative Jordan Wood of Bristol and Maine Beer Company cofounder Dan Kleban of Cumberland.
Mills released a roughly two-minute-long campaign launch video Tuesday that does not mention Collins by name until about a minute in. It begins by replaying clips from the viral February incident at a White House meeting with other governors in which Trump warned Mills that he would pull Maine’s federal funding if the state did not ban transgender female athletes from female sports.
The video features Mills’ “see you in court” response that made its way onto T-shirts, with Mills recalling her father telling her when she was a child, “You can’t let bullies have their way, or they’ll never stop.”
Trump followed through on targeting federal funds benefiting Maine and its universities, though the administration later reversed several decisions or saw judges overturn them. But Trump’s Justice Department still has a pending lawsuit with national implications that seeks to force Maine to ban transgender girls from female sports.
Adding that she would not run for the Senate if Trump and Congress “were doing things that were even remotely acceptable,” Mills pointed in her video to Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” of tax breaks and Medicaid cuts that Collins voted to advance this summer before voting against its final passage and alludes to her 2020 vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to say the senator “helped [Trump] overturn Roe v. Wade.”
“I won’t sit idly by while Maine people suffer and politicians like Susan Collins bend the knee as if this were normal,” Mills said in the video. “My life’s work has prepared me for this fight, and I’m ready to win.”
