Janet Mills Upends Maine Senate Race

Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME)

Twitter is my one, true social media addiction, and as a result, I sometimes forget that things I've been talking about on the bird app incessantly are not necessarily things that I've talked about here, and given that not everyone here is on Twitter (keep it that way), I wanted to share my thoughts on a major announcement that appears in the works in the state of Maine where (according to Axios) Gov. Janet Mills is expected to announce a run for the US Senate.

The reason this feels particularly appropriate for Twitter is that the Democratic base on social media has, by-and-large, already fallen desperately in love with a different candidate.  We talked a lot about Graham Platner here, but it's worth repeating that he seems to be an doing well as a first-time candidate, and the grassroots so far agrees, with him raising $3 million already, a huge sum in any race, but particularly for a first-time candidate.  Many people are comparing Mills' entrance into the race, and the presumed treatment she will get from Chuck Schumer & Kirsten Gillibrand to that of Haley Stevens has enjoyed, which as you know I am not supportive of (I've endorsed Mallory McMorrow in that race, and think Schumer should stay out of it).  But it may surprise you to find out that I'm actively hoping that Mills gets into this race & wins it, and while I don't think Schumer butting in will help at all, I do expect Mills to end up victorious in this race despite Platner's impressive performance so far.  Let me tell you why.

The best place to start is to point out how critically-important it is that the Democrats flip the Maine Senate race right now.  Currently, Susan Collins is the only senator in the entire country to hold a US Senate seat that her party lost in 2016/20/24.  Both parties are in a position where they are struggling to flip seats that aren't in the seven core swing states (NV, MI, PA, NC, GA, WI, & AZ), and given the disproportionately larger number of red states in the country, Democrats need to hold 12/14 of those Senate seats at any given time to win a majority...assuming that they also held all of the 19 states that went for them in the past three elections, which of course includes Maine, the one state they can't claim this achieved.  Democrats, quite frankly, will struggle to gain a majority not just in 2026, but also in 2028 or 2030 if they do not get a Democrat into that seat.  And given that Susan Collins is a formidable challenger, we have to assume that she will put up a decent fight.

When it comes to beating incumbents, I'll be honest, my strategy is different than how I'd approach an open seat primary in a state like Maine, which generally would favor the Democrat & therefore there would be some room for risk.  My thought is that we should not get bogged down by, say, a candidate's age or if they are slightly more liberal than your average Democrat is if it means flipping a seat.  The reason for this is twofold.  One, there is no current Republican in Congress who would be better than even the most moderate of Democrats in Congress-either Mills or Platner would bring this seat miles to the left if they were to replace Collins.  And two, this is very much of the mold of "just win, baby" to quote Nancy Pelosi.  You get picky about candidates when you have the luxury to do so-if you don't hold the seat currently & you're fighting an incumbent, you don't have room for luxuries.

Which brings us to the candidates.  Platner is impressive, but I'll be honest-his town hall meetings (to me) feel a bit like Democrats falling in love with a candidate who looks like a Republican but talks like a Democrat.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing (this strategy worked for recent flipped seats from John Fetterman and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez), but it is no guarantee to work, and his town hall performances have left me feeling a bit apprehensive to bet on him when there's better options (he seems somewhat out of his element, and a bit paint-by-numbers).  And Mills, despite her age, is a better option.  She has won statewide twice by wide-margins, and has a positive approval rating.  Maine is the oldest state in the union, with a median voter age of 45, so her age, especially against Collins (who is just a few years younger) isn't really a factor.  The Democrats are likely to hold the governor's mansion next year, so there's no worry about her replacement, and she's a known commodity.  She's not a glossy new potential national candidate like Platner would be if he won, but she's a safe choice.  And it's okay to have a safe choice on occasion-the Senate does not all need to be filled with rising stars (we will be fine if no one from Maine runs for president in 2028).  It's okay to occasionally just have a few generic backbenchers doing the work & increasing the caucus numbers.

Mills also makes Collins' race harder, which I think is important.  It's harder for Collins to redefine a candidate all of the state already knows (a fame that Platner will not have the luxury of falling back on as Collins attacks him), and because she's so well-known & well-liked, it'll be harder for Collins to argue that losing her is a genuine loss for the state.  Making arguments that seniority is important has largely gone extinct in recent years (Joe Manchin would've taken a shot at running for another term if it did work, and Collin Peterson would still be in the House), but also incumbents like Collins have also gone extinct...she's going to make a point of running on there being "just one Susan Collins" because is a strategy that has worked in the past.  Janet Mills, though, can run on "there's just one Janet Mills" in the same vein-Collins, who has taken on a number of strong challengers, has never gone against someone with the success rate of Mills.

The single biggest argument against Mills is her age, and gain-this is where I don't get too precious about these things.  Mills will almost certainly just serve one term, and that's okay.  Her usefulness will have been worth it simply by beating Collins and getting the seat blue (and from a legacy perspective, she'd have a decent shot at a Dem trifecta & delivering a huge progressive agenda back to Maine were she to win).  In six years, quite honestly, there's a decent chance one of the many candidates running for Maine's Governor could go for the open seat as a sitting governor just like Mills is doing now (and it's not like Angus King, who is older than Mills, is going to go for another term after his current one).  As long as the seat flips, Mills will have done what we need this candidate to do.

It's worth noting that history is on my side.  Countless sitting governors have run for the US Senate in the past few decades, and some of them have run in contested primaries, but all of them have won.  The last time an incumbent governor ran for a US Senate primary and lost was in 1986.  That year, weirdly enough, two sitting governors (Bill Janklow of South Dakota and Harry Hughes of Maryland) both lost their primaries.  In Janklow's case, he was challenging an incumbent Senator (Jim Abdnor), which of course is considerably different than Mills going up against the neophyte Platner.  Hughes did not run against an incumbent, but he was also involved in a massive savings-and-loan scandal at the time, something Mills hasn't really had to deal with, and lost to someone more tenured than Platner as well, Barbara Mikulski (at the time a 5-term congresswoman).  There's really no precedence for Mills to lose this race against Platner, and while I do think we might be in for a real race, smart money would be on her to win the primary...and given her experience & stature, I'd argue the general as well.