Maine Democrats are scrambling to replace Graham Platner a day after their nominee for U.S. Senate ended his bid following an allegation of sexual assault.
There’s a July 27 deadline set by state law for the party faithful to pick a new standard bearer in a race that is expected to be instrumental when it comes to whether Republicans can keep control of the Senate in this fall’s midterms.
Incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins may be vulnerable, but she has won five straight races for the seat dating back to 1996, and trying to defeat her was likely to carry challenges for Democrats even in the best case scenario.
Their new candidate will have to essentially start from nothing in the race, mend the divisions sown by Platner, introduce (or reintroduce) themselves to the broader electorate and corral support from the ex-candidate’s outsider-minded current and former followers, all in less than four months.
That amounts to a daunting task with massive implications not only for Maine Democrats, but potentially for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s time in the White House. Democrats need to flip at least four GOP-held Senate seats, and maintain all their current ones from several competitive states, to vault themselves into the majority in the midterms. A loss in Maine would be a significant setback.
Maine Democratic Party leaders announced plans “to hold a nominating convention to choose a new nominee,” while stating that “transparency is of the utmost importance.”
Already, several major voices are in the race, including unsuccessful candidate for governor and past Platner supporter Troy Jackson. The former state senate president made his bid clear less than an hour after Platner left the race. One major Bernie Sanders-aligned group, Our Revolution, has quickly rallied around Jackson.
Dan Kleban, co-founder of Maine Beer Company, is also in the fray, along with former governor candidate Nirav Shah, who worked as Director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention during the pandemic. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows who also ran for governor this summer is among other potential contenders.
Platner’s exit also brings difficulty for Collins and Republicans as well, however. Instead of facing a Democratic rival with a string of alarming controversies even before the sexual assault allegation, an accustation Platner has denied, Collins instead will have to try to keep her seat in a blue state against someone far less defined, and potentially with far fewer vulnerabilities, in November.
Across the country this year, Democrats have navigated a political environment rife with divisions over how to sway voters in these strange times, with tension between more entrenched party leaders and an energetic and angered left wing often spilling out into the open.
What happens in Maine over the coming weeks may prove to be no different.
Hunter Woodall covers politics for MS NOW. He’s reported on politics and presidential campaigns for The Associated Press and CBS News and reported on Congress for The Minnesota Star Tribune.
