Maine U.S. Senate- Race of the Day

 69 Days Until Election Day

Maine U.S. Senate

Status: Republican Incumbent

2024 Presidential Result: Blue State (East)

 

Outlook: Tossup (R)

 

You know, in a couple of high profile Georgia races, the Republican nominees for Governor and U.S. Senate are named Jackson and Collins. Over in Maine, the Senate race will be contested between Jackson and Collins. Just a little fun tidbit there, because there is definitely much to discuss.

 

Maine is the only state with a Republican seat up this year in a state that Donald Trump lost. If there is a wave for Democrats this would be expected to be perhaps their best pickup opportunity, To be sure, there is a definite decent chance for a blue pickup in Maine, and probably a better one that existed several weeks ago, but the party has far less of a good thing going here than might be expected to be the case. Some of that is due to their own drama and some of it is due to the survival skills of Senator Susan Collins.

 

Back in 1996, the Republican Collins won an open Senate seat, making a quick political comeback jut two years after she finished in third place in a two way Gubernatorial election. Maine has a history of liking moderate Republican female Senators and Collins went on to win a series of easy reelections. While definitely a Republican, Collins has indeed been one of the more moderate Republicans on Capitol Hill, and one of the last surviving relics of the kind of politician who used to be common in New England. In 2020, a Presidential election year, Collins looked to be highly vulnerable in a state that was expected to vote blue overall. She trailed her Democrat opponent that year in just about every poll and the state now had ranked choice voting, which might work even more against her. I wound up believing the conventional wisdom and on here, said the contest "Leaned" Democrat. Collins won 51-42. The polls were wrong. It was definitely her closest call, but still a decisive win. Many people were shocked. For all the national issues working against her party in Maine that year, the Senator had her own brand of political independence and won crossover votes.

As 2026 approached, it was clear that if Collins did not run this seat would almost surely fall to the Democrats. If she did, she could expect another serious challenge. Now at the age of 72, I was a bit surprised she is running again, but clearly being a Senator means a lot to her. Collins has recently confirmed that she has a medical condition that causes some shaking in her body and voice but says it does not affect her ability to do her job. Democrats nationally have definitely soured on Collins, citing her votes in favor of Supreme Court Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh and how she has not stood up as firmly to Donald Trump, in either term, to their satisfaction. It has been a running gag to say that Collins is "concerned" about various things on the right but never goes farther than that.

 

The whole story is more complicated. For one thing, Collins voted to convict Trump in his second Impeachment trial. Not a whole lot of Republicans did. She also voted against the confirmation of some Trump nominees, such as Pete Hegseth. However, she did vote in favor of Robert Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, and for me, those actions alone were enough to let me at least become agnostic on whether or not she should be defeated. Since she has crossed Trump on several occasions though, many in MAGA definitely hate her. In spite of that, somewhat amazingly, she was not challenged in a primary this year. Even Trump and Vice President JD Vance have been downright conciliatory in how they talk about her. Trump clearly hates anybody who is not totally loyal to her but Senate leaders have stressed to him that she is their only hope to holding on to Maine and perhaps the Senate itself. If she were to lose this year, you can expect to see Trump completely unload all his frustration about her.

 

With the Senate map very much at the forefront, Democrats in Washington D.C. tried to devise a plan to stop Collins from winning another term. The state's two Democrats serving in the U.S. House declined to run. Some lesser known candidates got into the race, but party leaders, including Senator Chuck Schumer recruited term-limited Maine Governor Janet Mills to run. Mills, who is in her late 70s, did not really appear to want to be a Senator but stood up to take on this race thinking about the need to win a Senate race and stand as a roadblock to Trump's agenda. It looked like things were lined up for the two women to face off in November, but Maine Democrats, especially the liberal activist types seemed pretty opposed to the idea. Mills was behind a primary opponent in the polls, and that did not appear to be a fluke, as the polls kept getting worse for her. More so, the general election polls showed she might even fare worse against Collins than this particular candidate who was to her left. For whatever reason, Maine Democrats wanted no part of their Governor and in late April she suspended her campaign, although she would remain on the June primary ballot.

 

The sudden new political phenomenon in Maine was 41 year old Democrat Graham Platner. The Marine veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan claimed to be an oyster farmer and gave off the kind of tough talking populist blue collar vibe that so many on the left thinks their party needs in order to win back white male voters. In fact, Platner grew up in an affluent family and his farming operation's only customer seemed to be his mother's restaurant. Platner caught on though with left-wing activists around the country and won endorsements of such people as Bernie Sanders and many more. 

 

Platner had a very questionable personal history though, far more than can really be gotten into here. He owned up to having had a lot of issues related to what he experienced in war and in conjunction with alcohol. He did not really state everything though, claiming that the worst stuff was already out there. It was not. For one thing, Platner had a Nazi image tattooed on his chest, which he got overseas while serving in the military. He claimed he did not know what the skull and crossbones image symbolized until very recently. Then, as an active Senate candidate, he got it covered up with another design publicly. Others would eventually come forward to claim Platner did not know what the tattoo was a long time ago. The candidate denied any association with anti-Semitism but his left-wing politics, which of course involved a lot of opposition to Israel, was said to be laden with anti-Jewish dog whistles. The Nazi tattoo alone should have been enough for Democrats to realize they were dealing with someone who was at best, a very troubled individual who might not be worth the political risk for a race they needed to win.

There was a lot more though. Platner used to be big on Reddit where he would say some truly crazy stuff and things about women and gays that if said by a Republican would be unforgivable. Democrats forgave him though and claimed he was a different person now and it could all be overlooked. Platner spoke about how he would take joy in raping a home intruder but "not in a gay way." There was also the matter of the woman to whom he was recently married going to the campaign to tell them that her husband had actively been trying to get together with numerous women.

 

As the primary got closer, Democrats worried about what else might be coming. Republicans seemed to know more was coming and were hoping Platner would be sticking around. Some in the party started to panic about making a mistake that could cost them the seat in November. Governor Mills reminded voters who was actually still on the ballot and would welcome their votes. Platner still won the primary over her 72-19. (Maine Democrats' 2024 U.S. Senate nominee, who was not really a factor in a race where most Democrats backed the incumbent Independent was third with eight percent.) The voters had spoken and it looked like Platner had prevailed. All sorts of party figures had to confirm that yes of course they were backing him now that the "voters had spoken." A few held out. Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, an unconventional politician himself and once but no longer a populist hero,  openly took rhetorical shots at the man who hoped to join him in the Senate.

It all reminded me immensely of the position Republicans found them in 2016 when Trump was nominated for President. So many people lost their principles to fall in line and back someone whom they knew was not right for the job. The concept of hypocrisy and comparisons to Trump's takeover of the party would only magnify.

 

Platner was continuing to awkwardly insist in interviews and privately to fellow Democrats that nothing else was coming out that would be a distraction, but reporters were at work. First a woman whom Platner had dated said that he had on a few occasions been physically rough with her. The Platner campaign attacked her as a Republican and for some on the left that was enough to dismiss her charges in spite of the "believe women" mantra. Then, another woman who dated him, who was definitely a Democrat did a CNN interview in which she described being raped in her home by an intoxicated Platner. He continued to deny all of these allegations completely, but clearly the scandal had reached critical mass. His allies and former supporters dropped their endorsement. The party in Maine and nationally said they would no longer support him and called for him to exit the race. The clock to get out before the deadline was approaching. Many Republicans took great glee over these stories (ignoring the documented history of Donald Trump) while others rightly recognized it would be politically advantageous for Democrats to throw Platner to the curb. Even before the final stories broke though, the polls started looking worse for the candidate. At one point, he had been leading Collins in most general election surveys, even though many warned not to underestimate Collins,who continued to mostly avoid talking about her opponent, since he was doing such a good job of imploding on his own. Eventually though, he started to fall behind her and that was really the impetus for them to know Platner had to do. Again, it was not the Nazi tattoo or even anything else, it was looking like a potential loser against Collins.

 

Platner resisted but ultimately dropped out of the race in July. He would drag his feet a little bit on the paperwork, apparently trying to negotiate with the state party a role in picking a replacement nominee. The leadership of Maine Democrats though wanted no part of him at this point and refused to submit to any demands he might have been making. In the video message in which he withdrew from the race,he said he was innocent of all charges but was dropping out because he was no longer going to be supported financially or politically by the party. Some on the left would continue to defend him. In the statement, Platner blamed his fellow Democrats, the media, Israel, and everyone but himself, whether it was the sexual assault and violence he continued to deny or the impossible to ignore reality that he had been very dishonest about matters that would affect his campaign. Perhaps one day someone can make a documentary about Graham Platner's political hubris and eventual downfall. Even the liberal campaign advisors who basically found him out of obscurity and got him into this Senate race admitted that they did not do the proper vetting and that all the earlier warning signs should have been enough to stop working with him.

 

Democrats needed a new candidate to take on Collins fairly quickly. The party of course had just had a crowded Gubernatorial primary, complete with Ranked Choice Voting, and many of those runner-ups quickly called up their supporters and pivoted to a Senate race, which would be chosen by a party nominating convention, likely to be dominated by the same sort of progressive activists who had liked Platner. Some other candidates would run too and appear in television debates, including a transgender woman who was brutally mocked online by MAGA types over physical appearance and the weird rationale of saying being a songwriter made her qualified for the Senate. 

 

As the delegates started considering their choices a bunch of the candidates withdrew from consideration including  the third place candidate from the original primary, a more conventional candidate who had withdrawn from the original Senate primary and then lost a U.S. House primary in June. A wealthy brewery owner, who might have made the most sense for a general election, got out of the replacement sweepstakes just as he had a while back in the first primary. Gubernatorial runners up Shenna Bellows, the state legislature appointed Secretary of State and Dr. Nirav Shah, the state's onetime Covid response public face folded their campaigns before the convention met. In the latter's case, that came after Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth came forward to point out that Shah was unacceptable because of a scandal under his watch when he led the Illinois Department of Public Health several years earlier under a Republican Governor. (Sort of ironic since Duckworth faced scandal when she lead an Illinois department under Governor Rod Blagojevich.)

 

By the time Maine Democrats convened, just about a month ago, it had become very clear who they were going with. The candidate to take on Collins would be Troy Jackson, who had recently finished third overall after all the RCV in the Gubernatorial primary. Jackson had once been a Pro-Life Republican, but became a Democrat and moved to the left. Like Platner, he had a blue collar image, (although probably far more real in this case.) Jackson had been a logger and would go on to serve as the President of the Maine Senate for six year ending in 2024. In his one previous federal race, he had gotten absolutely creamed in a 2014 Democrat Congressional primary. In his run for Governor, Jackson had been endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders and was thought of as being part of an unofficial ticket with the Senate candidacy of Platner. Now, in replacing Platner, with another candidate popular among the left, those primary voters can at least claim that they got mostly what they wanted. I have liked to joke that Jackson definitely does not have a Nazi tattoo but perhaps a Hammer and Sickle tattoo. Hey, at least the Soviets were on our side in World War II.

 

Are Democrats better off with Jackson than Platner in the general election? Yes, I think that is clearly the case, but damage has been done. I do not happen to think Jackson is the strongest possible candidate they could have chosen. Republicans have also been digging into his life. While not legally married, Jackson does have a longtime domestic partner with whom he shares two kids and the woman happens to be his second cousin. Rudy Giuliani was once married to a cousin, but that was several wives ago. Furthermore though, a 1988 police report resurfaced from when Jackson was 19 in which the girlfriend/cousin said he pushed her around. He also punched a man that night and paid a $50 fine. Far more recently, in 2021 as Senate President, he admits he got angry and threw a water bottle at his fellow Democrats. These Bernie Bros definitely seem to sometimes share some attributes. Whenever Platner would speak about Susan Collins when he was still a candidate and before that of Janet Mills when she was, there seemed to be some sexism under the surface.

 

Considering the current political state of the country in the second term of Donald Trump, there is no doubt that Susan Collins has her work cut out for her. She is going to have to be more aggressive in going after Jackson than she has any opponent before while at the same time stressing her opposition to Donald Trump on some high-profile matters and hoping that whatever MAGA voters in the state exist, will swallow hard and still show up and vote for her. That can be a definite highwire act. Recently, she did the right thing and voted to not confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General.

 

At the moment, polls out of Maine are showing a very narrow lead for Jackson, but I think this race is a clear Tossup. One can never forget that the 2020 polls all showed Collins behind, perhaps even by a solid margin, and when the dust settled she won by 9 points. There is a story this week that Graham Platner is talking to supporters and apparently is willing to see them write in his name on the general election ballot at the expense of his supposed ally Jackson. Maine does have RCV for the Senate general election, but if Collins takes over 50 percent to begin with, it's all moot. Any attempt to dilute support from the Democrats' current nominee, and the person representing them on the ballot would be harmful to them. Another more moderate Democrat would probably win this race this year, but I just have a hard time seeing Jackson get quite across the finish line. For now, I am giving a slight edge to the incumbent, who beat tremendous odds in her last race.

What do I want to happen in this race personally? It is complicated. I admit that as a staunch NeverTrump conservative, Republicans deserve to lose as many elections as possible this year. However, some Democrats are just not acceptable. There are probably a few that are specifically worse than Troy Jackson, but he is someone way too far to the left for my taste and I have to at least consider the positive attributes of Susan Collins (who frankly is also to my left.) There is something a bit off-putting about how so many on the left attack Collins as if she is "history's greatest monster."

 

Collins voted to convict Trump at least one out of the times she did. While she voted to confirm a couple horrible person in the Trump Cabinet, she did vote against others. I wish she would have done even more to oppose Trump over the past decade, but she has at least been the only truly consistent Senator in either party on the matter of Supreme Court confirmations. She voted down the line as I would have, in confirming the nominees of both parties, because elections have consequences, but at the same time voting on principle against Amy Coney Barrett because it was very hypocritical to put her through in the election year of 2020 when the Democrats could not do so in the election year of 2016. I do not think anybody should be put through during a Presidential election year. (For the record, Justice Barrett is probably along with Chief Justice Roberts, the two SCOTUS members whom I agree with the most. It is definitely not that she was unqualified or is a bad person.) 

 

So, after all the Platner drama and everything else, perhaps I do want to see Susan Collins win after all while Democrats find a way to take the Senate without this seat (or Michigan.) That probably cannot logically happen though, so maybe a Democrat House and a Republican Senate will be good enough at holding Trump in check his final two years. 

 

I am definitely not going to lose any sleep over whatever happens in Maine, but I am glad that Graham Platner is not going to be a Senator. I hope we never hear much from him again, while at the same time hoping he gets his life sorted out. He seems to need to do so. The whole situation involving him is a great reminder to ardent partisans on both sides that some things should matter more than party labels or the pure pursuit of power. At least occasionally, Senator Collins has lived up to that. Hopefully, she does it even more.

 

 

Senate races predicted thus far: 

5 D (2 Safe, 1 Likely, 1 Leans, 1 Tossup)

9 R (2 Safe, 3 Likely, 2 Leans, 2 Tossup)

 

Senate total predicted thus far:

39 D (34 holdover, 2 Safe, 1 Likely, 1 Leans, 1 Tossup) 

40 R (31 holdover, 2 Safe, 3 Likely, 2 Leans, 2 Tossup)