Politics
Our political journalists are based in the Maine State House and have deep source networks across the partisan spectrum in communities all over the state. Their coverage aims to cut through major debates and probe how officials make decisions. Read more Politics coverage here.
WATERVILLE, Maine — Political newcomer Graham Platner has ridden a progressive, insurgent message of shaking up Washington to become the presumptive nominee in the Democratic Party’s latest push to oust five-term Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins.
With Gov. Janet Mills suspending her flagging Senate bid last week after being recruited by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, and receiving support from many party playmakers, Platner and his supporters hope to ride a wave of energy among voters frustrated with both Democratic and Republican leadership and eager for new faces on Capitol Hill.
But Collins says she isn’t fazed by any anti-establishment mood among Mainers. Asked what she tells voters who want new blood and new ideas in Washington, Collins on Monday touted a track record of working for decades with both sides of the aisle.
“That’s how you get things done,” she said after a tour of the Mid-Maine Technical Center. “It is not just ranting and raving, but actually working together.”
Collins did not name Platner in her comments. But her depiction of him and other politicians as fueled by anger, while highlighting her success bringing Maine federal dollars, shows how she’ll attempt to quash the outsider’s message that he’s part of a movement to bring a radical overhaul to Washington politics.
The senator noted that before she became the Senate Appropriations Committee chair, it had been 92 years since a Maine senator held the role. She noted she helped secure more than $700,000 in investments for the technical center and $1.5 billion for the state over the last five years.
“I’ve had a once-in-a-century opportunity to really deliver for the state of Maine, and you don’t get that overnight,” she said.
Republicans and GOP-aligned groups are using other methods to help Collins defend her seat, including attack ads putting the spotlight on controversies Platner has faced, including years-old offensive Reddit posts and a tattoo of a Nazi-linked image.
Groups backing Collins have reserved more than $67 million in ads from Monday through the rest of the year, according to AdImpact. That’s a $46.8 million advantage over Democrats, though the party is increasingly rallying around Platner. Experts estimate a record-breaking price tag in the pivotal race with the GOP’s control of the Senate on the line.
Schumer reportedly had a cordial conversation with Platner by phone after Mills dropped out. The Democratic leader stressed the importance of flipping a seat Collins has held since 1997, the New York Times reported.
Collins told reporters Monday that she hadn’t seen recent ads by political action committees going after Platner. She said she had seen a “plethora of negative ads distorting my record with outright lies.”
“My hope is this campaign can be civil, that we can discuss accomplishments and our vision for the state,” she said.
But Platner, who consistently led Mills in primary polls by double digits and who led Collins by 6 percentage points in a recent survey by a Republican-aligned pollster, has remained on the offensive. While he still faces a June primary against 2024 U.S. Senate nominee and former government official David Costello, Platner at Maine Democrats’ convention on Saturday fired up hundreds of delegates by blasting Collins on policy and character.
Like many Democrats up and down the ballot, he linked Collins and the GOP to President Donald Trump and his administration’s most contentious actions, including severe cuts to Medicaid, immigration roundups in Maine, an economy still facing steep prices and a U.S.-Israeli war on Iran he says is unjustified. Collins and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, were the only two Republicans voting along with Democrats last week on a failed war powers resolution to curtail Trump’s war in Iran.
“We are taking back a broken Washington from a generation of politicians that have failed us, and from the lobbyists who own them,” he said. “Susan’s charade is over. We don’t care that you pretend to be remorseful at the start of a new forever war that you chose to let happen.”
