Janet Mills, the Maine governor, suspended her bid for the US Senate on Thursday, just weeks before the Democratic primary.
Mills, who received support from the Democratic establishment in Washington DC, said she no longer had the “financial resources” to face off against first-time candidate Graham Platner, an oyster farmer and former marine, in the 9 June primary. Mills’s exit leaves Platner as the main Democrat vying to unseat Susan Collins, the five-term Republican incumbent, in a race that has become one of the most closely watched competitions in the country this midterm cycle.
“While I have the drive and passion, commitment and experience, and above all else – the fight – to continue on, I very simply do not have the one thing that political campaigns unfortunately require today: the financial resources,” Mills said in a statement. “That is why today I have made the incredibly difficult decision to suspend my campaign for the United States Senate.”
Her decision to pull out of the contest now paves the way for Platner, a progressive newcomer with no experience in politics, to clinch the Democratic nomination. Platner has staked his run on fixing a “broken” political system that caters to the wealthy and fosters corruption.
At a campaign event in Augusta on Thursday, Platner said that Mills’s decision to suspend her campaign was an example of the governor’s “commitment” to defeat Collins. “I look forward to working closely with [Mills] between now and November … to turn this seat blue again,” Platner added.
Mills, a two-term governor and longtime Maine politician who also served as the state’s attorney general, has yet to confirm whether she will endorse Platner. The governor was seen as one of Democrats’ top 2026 recruits when she entered the Senate race last year. She had the backing of Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, and prominent left-leaning advocacy groups, as they try to pick up at least four seats to reclaim control of the upper chamber of Congress.
“Janet Mills is a formidable governor who has broken barriers and never hesitates to stand up to bullies to fight for Maine. We are grateful for her hard-fought and principled campaign, and we respect her decision to continue her service to Maine as Governor,” said Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) chair, Kirsten Gillibrand, in a statement.
They added that Democrats’ “north star” was winning a Senate majority, and they will “work with the presumptive Democratic nominee Graham Platner to defeat [Susan Collins]”.
Platner confirmed that there had been a “reach out” from the DSCC, but he had not spoken to anyone as of yet.
After Mills’s announcement, Collins told reporters on Capitol Hill that she imagined it was a “very difficult decision” for the governor to drop out of the race. “She has devoted her life to public service in the state of Maine, in many different capacities, she has served the people of our state,” Collins added. However, the Republican lawmaker refused to answer questions about whether Platner, now the de facto Democratic nominee, would be easier to beat.
Throughout her campaign, Mills struggled to outshine Platner, as he filled out school gyms and town halls in his tour of the state, led the governor by double digits in recent polling and racked up several endorsements from senior senators, including Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Chris Van Hollen.
In the last six months, however, multiple controversies from Platner’s past came to light. Last year, there was a steady drip of reports featuring Platner’s unearthed racist, sexist and homophobic online comments. Then, Platner tried to get ahead of the story when he revealed, and then covered, a tattoo on his chest that closely resembles a Nazi symbol.
Mills, for her part, attempted to highlight the indiscretions that beleaguered Platner’s campaign. In March, she launched an ad that featured women reacting to Platner’s 2013 Reddit post – where he said that survivors and victims of sexual assault should “take some responsibility for themselves and not get so fucked up”.
Platner has insisted that his past comments are inexcusable, but also a side effect from the trauma he endured during his time in the military. At a packed town hall this week in Sabbattus, Maine, a town of just more than 5,000, some voters in the room were concerned that Collins would dredge up more questionable comments and behavior on Platner as the election draws closer.
The veteran, however, remained undeterred. “I have not lived a very complicated life. I’ve never been close to money and power. I’ve never had some kind of like weird, weird relationships with people,” he told the enraptured crowd. “Pretty much everything’s been dragged up. I’ve been talking about it since October.”
The showdown between Platner and Mills ultimately became one between an insurgent unknown and the Democratic establishment, particularly in the wake of national Democrats’ identity crisis following the 2024 election.
Now, a contest between Collins and Platner will show whether Maine – a state that is decidedly purple and prone to ticket-splitting – will push back against the Trump administration in November. Several voters and political commentators said that they felt that this year’s midterm elections were arguably set to be more nationalized than past cycles because of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, changes to the civil service, and the ongoing war on Iran and its impact on the US economy.
Platner leads Collins 48% to 41% in a hypothetical general election match-up. But as a political outsider he will still have to win over voters in conservative pockets of the state where Collins, the chair of the powerful Senate appropriations committee, has historically been untouchable, pointing to the federal money she has steered back to Maine over her decades in Congress.
