Maine Gov. Janet Mills enters crowded Democratic race to unseat Susan Collins

Maine Gov. Janet Mills announced Tuesday that she’ll enter the race to defeat Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a top target in national Democrats’ bid to regain the Senate.

Mills was recruited by Democratic Senate leaders after her high-profile confrontation with President Donald Trump in February over transgender athletes, a dispute that triggered a wave of retaliatory moves by his administration against the state. The exchange is featured in her launch ad.

“My life’s work has prepared me for this fight and I’m ready to win,” Mills says in the video. “This election will be a simple choice: Is Maine going to bow down or stand up. I know my answer.”

In an interview, Mills said the interaction was a “jaw-dropping” moment that showcased Trump’s monarch-like aspirations. She said it also pushed her to consider running for a Senate seat that she previously hadn’t wanted.

“When I was a little girl growing up in Farmington, my father always said you have to stand up to bullies. You can’t let them have their way or they’ll never stop,” she said. “And I think that’s what’s going on in Congress right now … Congress is not standing up to him. Susan Collins is not standing up to him.”

She added, “I don’t think I could forgive myself if I didn’t give everything I’ve got to change what’s going on in a very dysfunctional government in Washington.”

To defeat Collins, Mills will first have to navigate a potentially bruising primary. The contest already features more than half a dozen candidates, including two, Jordan Wood and Graham Platner, who are taking a more progressive tack. Platner is also channeling Democratic voters’ disillusionment with party leaders and has framed Mills’ candidacy as an example of their unwillingness to part ways with the “same old, tired playbook.“

Platner’s candidacy, endorsed by independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, is part of a national trend in which insurgent candidates are taking on Democratic incumbents or those favored by national party leaders. A few days before Mills’ announcement, Sanders said in a social media post that “it’s disappointing that some Democratic leaders are urging Governor Mills to run. We need to focus on winning that seat & not waste millions on an unnecessary & divisive primary.”

Mills, who will be 78 in December, said she looked forward to the primary and is eager to contrast her accomplishments as governor against the other candidates. She highlighted her efforts to steer more of the state budget for local education, expanding Medicaid health coverage for low-income Mainers and providing free meals in public schools. She also noted her long history of standing up for abortion rights, expanding access to the procedure after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision and making Maine a haven for women who live in states where it’s restricted or outright banned.

“I’m the only candidate in this race who has delivered on those things,” she said.

Mills has proven a formidable statewide candidate in her two successful runs for governor. In 2022, she defeated conservative firebrand and former Gov. Paul LePage to win her second term, holding her own in Maine’s conservative 2nd Congressional District.

A steep climb for Democrats

The U.S. Senate race will present a new and daunting challenge.

Democrats haven’t won a U.S. Senate race in Maine since former Sen. George Mitchell won reelection in 1988. Collins has held her seat since 1996. Democrats’ ballyhooed and famously expensive bid to unseat her in 2020 sputtered to an 8-point defeat in a state that President Joe Biden carried by 9 points.

Democrats believe Collins is more vulnerable now. The Maine Democratic Party has repeatedly sought to highlight what they see as her diminished influence as chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee amid the Trump administration’s bid to consolidate power in the executive branch.

Her potential ascension to the budget panel was repeatedly highlighted by her campaign in 2020 as a way to sway Maine’s fickle — and often decisive — independent voting bloc.

Mills touched on that critique as well, saying Collins’ climb to the budget committee was a “big deal” but that she hasn’t used her position to push back against Trump’s bid to wrest more spending authority from Congress.

Democrats have also attacked her votes to confirm Trump’s controversial cabinet picks and to confirm judges they say are hostile to abortion rights.

Mills would be the oldest freshman elected to the upper chamber in modern history if she’s able to topple Collins, who will be 73 in December. The governor acknowledged that age will be “a consideration” for some voters, but she thinks they’ll side with her experience, especially in the Democratic primary.

“I know I can take on this one last fight and get it done,” she said.

A crowded primary field 

The governor’s entry in the race will likely discourage other Democratic hopefuls from running and it may force out already declared candidates.

Wood and Platner have vowed to stay in. Platner, asked recently about Mills’ seemingly imminent candidacy, told Maine Public that his campaign won’t change its approach much.

“We’re going to undertake the same project, no matter who gets in,” he said, adding, “This is a campaign to reshape the Democratic party.”

Platner, an oyster farmer and military veteran, has said that his campaign is about building a movement and a political infrastructure that will endure after next year’s midterms. His campaign already claims 6,000 volunteers and his town hall appearances have drawn large crowds. It also claims to have raised more than $4 million in a little more than a month.

Wood, a former staffer for U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., claims his campaign has raised a similar amount over a longer period.

Mills, a former prosecutor, served two stints as Maine’s attorney general. The second came between 2013 and 2018 while Republican LePage was governor. The two clashed frequently as LePage, often seen as a Trump prototype, pushed the bounds of executive branch power. Mills would later defeat him in her bid to secure a second term as governor.

“See you in court” 

Her fights with LePage set the stage for her February confrontation with Trump during a National Governors Association event at the White House. During the event, Trump called on Mills to obey his executive order banning transgender athletes from participating on girls’ sports teams. Mills told him she would follow Maine law, which currently allows the practice. When he threatened to pull Maine’s federal funding, Mills told him, “See you in court.”

The looming primary contest in Maine is part of a larger pattern of insurgent Democrats in congressional contests running on a brand of economic populism long championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Platner has been particularly critical of national Democrats, including their recruitment of Mills.

“Running candidates that are picked by D.C., running campaigns that are driven by D.C., I think that’s a losing strategy,” he said during a recent interview. “I think, what we’re doing — which is really trying to build a campaign of Mainers, for Mainers — that’s the way we win the state of Maine.”