Sparks Flying in Maine's Senate Race

[Passages]

Gov. Janet Mills faces a bold Democratic primary challenger while Susan Collins displays her preternatural calm.


by Gabrielle Gurley
October 20, 2025


Susan Collins remains forever unconcerned. One of the Republicans’ most reliable meme generators isn’t fretting over Janet Mills’s entry into the race for Maine’s Senate seat.

She has Graham Platner to thank for this moment of Zen. The oyster farmer and Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran turned the governor’s waltz into the race against Collins into a 2026 Democratic primary battle. Phenomenal crowds have shown up—eight months before the election—to hear from one of the most charismatic newcomers to surge into Maine politics in recent memory.

While most Maine Democrats would rather see off Mills—who, should she win, would be 79 years old when she takes office in 2027—into a comfortable retirement, they are more sanguine than national Democrats are about the development that pits two appealing candidates against each other.

Collins’s campaign has downplayed the reconfigured Democratic contest as “very chaotic.” But excitement isn’t chaos. What should concern Collins is that the anger surging in Maine over the dismal state of the United States could launch her into retirement.

https://prospect.org/2025/10/20/2025-10-20-sparks-flying-maine-senate-race/