Maine Beer Company cofounder Dan Kleban announced Wednesday he is joining the Democratic field seeking to beat U.S. Sen. Susan Collins in 2026.
The 48-year-old from Cumberland was working at a law firm in Portland before losing his job in 2009 amid the Great Recession and pivoting to launch a brewing business with his brother. Maine Beer Company moved over the years from an initial one-barrel shop in Portland to its expansive Freeport brewery and tasting room that employs more than 100 workers and gives 1 percent of its annual sales to environmental nonprofits.
Kleban said earlier this year that Democrats reached out to him about running for the Senate after the Bangor Daily News first mentioned him in April as a potential gubernatorial candidate. Rather than seeking to succeed Gov. Janet Mills, who herself has not ruled out a Senate bid, Kleban said he decided to run to unseat the fifth-term senator.
“People are hurting,” Kleban said in an interview with the BDN. “I think the cost of living is too damn high, and I don’t think Susan Collins is doing enough to give hardworking Mainers needed relief.”
The Senate race is starting to pick up energy after going for months with only one politically connected candidate, Jordan Wood of Bristol, on the Democratic side. Oysterman and Marine veteran Graham Platner of Sullivan joined the Democratic field in mid-August and received a surge of national attention, appearing alongside U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and gubernatorial candidate Troy Jackson at a Labor Day rally in Portland.
Former state Sen. Cathy Breen of Falmouth said Tuesday she is considering a bid, while others have been waiting to make decisions until Mills, who is termed out of office next year, decides on whether to run for the Senate. Her entrance would further upend the primary race, as national Democrats view Mills as their preferred candidate.
A slew of lesser-known candidates on the right and left are also running against Collins, who first won election to the Senate in 1996. The Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee is facing dismal approval ratings and has drawn the ire of President Donald Trump at times for voting against some of his policies. She has firm support from national Republicans who want to protect her seat in a blue state amid the GOP holding a 53-47 Senate advantage.
Kleban criticized Collins’ 2018 vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh before Kavanaugh and the Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned in 2022 the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that had codified federal abortion rights.
The Kavanaugh vote sparked the massive Democratic challenge to Collins in 2020, when then-Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon lost to the Republican senator. Kleban considered running for Senate during that cycle but ultimately declined to do so.
Kleban pointed to Collins’ vote this summer to advance Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” before being one of three Republican senators to oppose its final passage, chiefly citing its potential effects on rural hospitals. Vice President JD Vance cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate before Trump signed his package of tax breaks and spending cuts into law on July 4.
“She’s always there when you don’t need her,” Kleban said of Collins. “She could have stopped that [bill] in its tracks, but nope. She played politics.”
Kleban, who has a wife and 14-year-old twins, said he has already been talking with Mainers about their needs and plans on traveling across the state in the coming months to listen to people as part of his campaign.
“Each and every day, I’m going to go to work for them with the singular focus of making their lives more affordable,” Kleban said.
