Maine Gov. Janet Mills Is Running For Senate

Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills announced Tuesday she is running for Senate, a massive recruiting success for the party as it aims to finally oust GOP Sen. Susan Collins in a consistently blue state.

Mills, 77, has a demonstrated track record of electoral success in Maine, winning the last two gubernatorial elections by 7 percentage points and 13 percentage points. Collins, while consistently unpopular in public polling, is a strong fundraiser who has managed to secure support from Democratic voters in the past.

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Mills will also have to first defeat oyster farmer Graham Platner in a primary. While Platner is far less known than Mills, a viral launch video and an endorsement from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) enabled him to raise $4 million in his first three months in the race.

Mills’ launch video emphasizes her ability to stand up to President Donald Trump, opening with her confrontation with the president at the White House in February, where he threatened federal funding to Maine over the state’s support for allowing transgender participation in youth sports.

“You know, my father was a 7th-generation Mainer who stood up for people who couldn’t stand up for themselves,” Mills says in the two-minute-long launch ad, which also recounts her career as one of the first female prosecutors in the state. “And when I was little, he told me, ‘You can’t let bullies have their way or they’ll never stop.’”

Mills dedicates much of the ad to attacking her GOP opponent, suggesting she may not have run if Collins and other Republicans were doing a better job of standing up to Trump.

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“Honestly, if this president and this Congress were doing things that were even remotely acceptable, I wouldn’t be running for the U.S. Senate,” she says. “But when Trump rips away health care from millions of Americans and drives up costs on everything from groceries to housing to trucks and cars, then turns around and gives corporate CEOs a massive tax cut, and Susan Collins helps him do it? After she helped him 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,” she declares.

Mills will be the oldest freshman senator in history if elected. Democrats supporting her are counting on exchanges like her battle with Trump to show the public she’s sharp enough to replace the 72-year-old Collins in the job. Maine is the oldest state in the union ― the average resident there is 45 years old, nearly two years older than the next oldest state, New Hampshire.

A coalition of Democratic youth groups, including Voters of Tomorrow, the College Democrats of America and Leaders We Deserve, the group founded by activist David Hogg to back young candidates for office, responded to Mills’ entrance into the race by endorsing Platner.

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“After our historic loss in the 2024 election, conversations within the Democratic Party have rightly centered on age, the loss of young men, the working class, and the growing disillusionment of young voters,” Hogg said. “As our party charts a path forward, Graham Platner represents not the entire solution, but a vital step in the right direction.”

While Platner has generated significant buzz ― and even has high-profile Democratic operatives wondering if the establishment is making a mistake by recruiting Mills ― it’s clear the GOP fears Mills more at the start of the race. Republicans tried to discourage her from running, in part, by resurrecting a scandal from the 1990s where she was accused of cocaine use. (Mills has maintained the accusations were politically motivated.)

“Maine Democrats are locked in a bruising fight between Chuck Schumer’s out-of-touch establishment and Bernie Sanders’ far-left radicals,” said Joanna Rodriguez, the communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “No matter which Democrat emerges, we’re confident Mainers will continue to trust independent problem solver Susan Collins to keep delivering for them.”

The NRSC also launched a digital ad attacking Mills.

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