Sullivan oysterman and Democratic candidate Graham Platner has called for Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, to lose his Senate leadership position in response to the deal that ended the government shutdown, while Gov. Janet Mills is noncommittal about the minority leader, who recruited her for the high-profile 2026 race.
It is part of the tension between the top two Democrats who are vying in next year’s primary for the chance to unseat U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. The Senate race has so far not focused too heavily on policy disagreements but rather more on the personal contrasts between Platner, a 41-year-old unabashed progressive and military veteran, and Mills, a 77-year-old former attorney general and prosecutor with a more moderate record as governor.
The debates over the 74-year-old Schumer, however, offer voters competing visions on leadership. No senators have explicitly pushed to replace him yet.
But Schumer, who has led his chamber’s caucus since 2017 and was first elected to the Senate in 1998, has faced renewed calls from Democrats at different levels to step aside after seven Democratic senators and U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, helped Republicans pass a stopgap funding measure that President Donald Trump then signed last week to end the 43-day shutdown that was the longest in U.S. history.
Although Schumer voted against the deal, he has taken heat as a leader for not keeping the caucus together in its bid to oppose the Republican-backed plan if it did not also include an extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits expiring at the end of this year. It echoed fallout from a March stopgap deal as well. The plan funding the government through January instead only features an agreement to vote on some version of a tax credit extension in December.
Platner, who enjoyed a huge lead over Mills in the first independent poll of the race done in October before Reddit-related and tattoo-related controversies roiled Platner’s campaign, had called for Schumer to no longer be in his leadership role after the shutdown vote. On Monday, Platner’s campaign spokesperson confirmed he has two preferred successors.
Platner campaign spokesperson Joe Calvello said he would support either U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii or U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland to replace Schumer. Schatz, a 53-year-old progressive, has been in office since 2012, while Van Hollen, 66, has been in office since 2017. Both have held various leadership positions below the caucus leader role.
Calvello also said Schumer never reached out to Platner, who is backed by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, regarding the Senate race and the effort to recruit Mills.
Mills, who entered the Senate race in October after Schumer and other national Democrats encouraged her to run against Collins, said when she launched her campaign that she has made “no commitments” to anyone who may run for leader. Mills campaign spokesperson Scott Ogden deferred Tuesday to those October comments.
“My vote is not guaranteed to Sen. Schumer or anybody else,” Mills said. “They’ll have to earn it.”
A lesser-known candidate in the Senate race is Brunswick resident and former Maryland political staffer David Costello, who also ran against King last year. Costello said he would support Van Hollen if he were to seek Schumer’s job.
“Having lived and worked in Maryland, I’m a big Chris Van Hollen fan,” Costello said.
As for King, he said earlier this month that Schumer provided feedback rather than pushback to the Democratic-aligned senators who voted with Republicans on the stopgap funding deal.
“We weren’t trying to end-run him,” King said. “And he had some input into what we were working on.”
