Portland, Maine
—
Gov. Janet Mills was laying out her case in opposition to Sen. Susan Collins to a number of dozen supporters lately when one attendee raised a query on the minds of many citizens in Maine.
“How are you and your campaign going to push back against the argument that you are too old?” the voter requested.
“Damn!” Mills remarked with a chuckle earlier than later saying: “The times are too urgent, too dangerous not to send the best person we have, the most tested candidate.”
Democratic leaders in Washington had been thrilled when Mills, 78, entered the Senate race final fall, seeing the two-term governor as the kind of battle-tested candidate who might lastly unseat Collins and provides their occasion a shot on the majority.
But Mills is confronting a persistent drawback: Graham Platner, an oyster farmer and political newcomer simply over half her age, is interesting to the starvation of many progressive voters looking forward to a new technology of rebel Democrats notably in the aftermath of Joe Biden’s presidency.
Mills takes questions on her age head-on and reiterates that she would serve only one time period if elected, given she’d be the oldest Senate freshman ever sworn into workplace if she wins in November.
“Good Lord. I’m not Joe Biden for God’s sake,” she advised NCS in a current interview.
“I’m healthy, I’m me, I get stuff done. People see me at work every day, and they know what I can do. They know that I can deliver, and I have delivered,” she mentioned after wrapping up a roundtable assembly with a handful of native well being care professionals and enterprise homeowners at a espresso store in Portland.
No different Senate Democratic main encapsulates the ideological, tactical and generational divides nonetheless gripping the Democratic Party than right here in Maine, which is a must-win for the occasion because it tries to win a web of 4 seats to take again the Senate. Whoever wins the Democratic main will face a robust battle in November: The GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund already plans to spend at the least $42 million to bolster Collins in the marketing campaign’s remaining stretch.
Polling in the race thus far has been scarce forward of the June 9 main. Platner, who’s backed by unbiased Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, has held 34 city halls throughout the state, in accordance with his marketing campaign. Mills has opted for smaller roundtables that her marketing campaign dubs “candid conversations” with voters.
Asked about Platner’s giant crowds, Mills mentioned, “He has energy, but you also have to have positions that are backed up by knowledge and experience and what you’re going to do and how you’re gonna do it. … It’s easy to talk the talk. It’s a lot harder to walk the walk, and I’ve walked the walk.”
In his personal interview with NCS, Platner, 41, known as Mills’ remark “ironic,” citing insurance policies he’s rolled out and his push to make use of “political power that I think is necessary to bring about that kind of policy change. I do not hear that from the governor.”
There are sharp variations between the 2. On a number of hot-button points, Platner went additional to the left, even saying that President Donald Trump ought to “absolutely” be impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate if Democrats take Congress in the autumn.
Platner says Chuck Schumer ought to be out as Democratic chief, whereas Mills says she’s undecided on that query. As Platner says tax hikes for the rich ought to pay for common well being care, Mills says such an thought is “too simplistic,” although she backs a related well being care system.
Platner mentioned US Immigration and Customs Enforcement ought to “absolutely” be abolished and that it “cannot be reformed,” whereas Mills wouldn’t go that far when requested thrice whether or not ICE ought to be eradicated, saying there’s a “role for immigration enforcement under a new reformed immigration process” and “humane” legal guidelines.
And requested whether or not Democrats ought to power a authorities shutdown over ICE, Platner mentioned: “Absolutely … and not just over ICE. The Democratic Party should be using all the leverage it has to fight back against the array of absurdities that are occurring.”
Mills was extra cautious on that query.
“Congress has a number of tools at its disposal, and the first thing they could do is hold hearings,” Mills mentioned. “If people like Susan Collins had the backbone to do it, she could do it.”
After the killing of Alex Pretti, Mills reiterated her calls that Congress ought to “cut off any further funding for ICE” as she demanded a assembly with Trump, known as for ICE brokers to go away her state and mentioned the Senate ought to reject Homeland Security Department funding until there are main adjustments.
Mills largely focuses on Collins, as she did in showing earlier than supporters final month, making scant references to Platner and never calling him out by identify. But she did appear to reference one controversy surrounding Platner.
“My life is an open book,” Mills advised the gathering. “I don’t have any tattoos. Trust me on that.”
Reports surfaced in the autumn of a tattoo Platner had on his chest with Nazi imagery and previous social media posts in which he denigrated police, minimized sexual assault, questioned Black prospects’ suggestions at eating places and implied White rural voters might be racist and “stupid.”
After NCS and different information organizations revealed the posts, Platner apologized, contending they got here at a completely different time in his life after serving in fight. And he pleaded ignorance in regards to the origins of the skull-and-crossbones tattoo he obtained in 2007 in Croatia whereas he was out ingesting along with his fellow Marines. He announced in October that he had the tattoo lined.
Platner argues the controversies are baked in with Maine voters and haven’t “turned anyone off.” He’s famous that he’s been talking in regards to the controversy publicly in media interviews and argued he’d be capable to face up to GOP assault advertisements.
“I have not run away from it,” he mentioned. “I’ve been happy to discuss the fact that I used to believe things I don’t believe today, and to talk about my transformation, because I think the ability for people to change is necessary if we’re going to build a better politics. It shows that I’m just a normal guy that has not been spending his entire life preparing to run for the US Senate.”
Yet Platner additionally gives a protection of kinds for a few of his previous remarks, together with over his 2020 submit suggesting that rural White Americans are “actually” as “racist or stupid as Trump thinks.”
“I hate to tell you this, but have you ever gotten into an argument on the internet?” he mentioned when requested in regards to the submit. “Because when you get in arguments on the internet and you’re not planning on running for the United States Senate, you say things to bother the person you’re arguing with.”
“I’m a White guy from rural Maine. I grew up in rural Maine. I live in a small town, the one that I grew up in. All of my neighbors are rural White people in Maine. They aren’t stupid. They aren’t racist. Neither am I. I don’t believe that. If I did, I wouldn’t live there,” he continued.
Asked whether or not he believed some had been racist and silly, Platner deadpanned, “I think saying that some people in the United States are racist and stupid is not remotely a controversial statement.”
Mills says the posts are sure to develop into a “bigger liability” in a basic election, underscoring her argument that Platner is a threat to appoint.
Collins, 73, has survived one robust election after one other since her first Senate victory in 1996. She is a perennial swing vote who pitches herself as a consensus builder on points akin to new infrastructure initiatives, preserving Social Security advantages and bringing federal largesse again to Maine.
She announced Thursday that, at her urging, ICE had ended its “enhanced activities” in Maine after authorities launched an enforcement operation just like the one in Minnesota.
“I have a long and clear record of bipartisanship,” Collins advised NCS when requested whether or not Trump can be a drawback for her in a basic election.
But the 2026 election might be her first race for the reason that US Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the federal right to an abortion. Collins received reelection in 2020 even after voting to verify two of Trump’s three Supreme Court justices — and offering important help for now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who later voted to overturn Roe v. Wade regardless of assuring her he would respect precedent preserving abortion rights. Collins later mentioned Kavanaugh “misled” her in his personal assurances.
Last 12 months, Collins voted in opposition to confirming Pete Hegseth as secretary of protection and Kash Patel for FBI director. But she backed Linda McMahon as training secretary, Russ Vought to steer the White House price range workplace and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run US Health and Human Services.
“I think that presidents have the right to assemble their own Cabinets,” Collins mentioned. “Except in extraordinary cases, I defer to the president’s choice, assuming the individual has the integrity and the ability to do the job.”
Asked whether or not she regretted her vote to verify Kennedy, Collins mentioned: “I do not regret the vote. That doesn’t mean that I agree with RFK Jr. on vaccine policy. I do agree with him on his focus on chronic diseases and his belief that ultra-processed food is not good for us.”
Mills pointed to Collins’ votes for Kennedy, McMahon and Kavanaugh.
“What she hasn’t done is she hasn’t protected the public health infrastructure in Maine by voting to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for instance,” she mentioned.
In one thing of a paradox, a part of the talk between Mills and Platner is about seniority.
Mills’ one-term pledge means she would solely ever be a junior member in her caucus and on Senate committees, one thing each Platner and Collins identified in separate interviews.
“I know personally that I have far more clout and far more ability to get things done now as a senior senator than I did at the conclusion of my first term,” mentioned Collins, a senior member of a number of key committees and chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which controls the purse strings of the federal authorities.
Platner added: “If we’re going to lose (Collins), and we very much need to lose her, her replacement needs to be someone who has the capability to rebuild that seniority and power.”
Mills dismissed the criticism, insisting that her voice “will be heard strongly in the United States Senate.”
“Seniority is nothing if you’re without effectiveness,” Mills mentioned. “Seniority without effectiveness is merely tenure, and that’s what we’ve got right now.”
Mills, who met with Schumer final winter as she was weighing a potential run, mentioned the choice to run was strictly hers, one thing she mentioned she considered final summer time whereas attending an occasion on the historic Kennedy Caucus Room in the Senate’s Russell constructing.
“It’s all too comfortable to sit in the easy approval of friends and of neighbors than to risk the friction and the controversy that comes with public affairs,” mentioned Mills, paraphrasing a quote utilized by then-Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in a speech on the University of Mississippi, as she weighed whether or not so as to add six extra years to her greater than 40 years in public life.
Asked how arduous the race can be, Mills deadpanned.
“None of it’s going to be easy, but hey, what are they going to do to me?” she mentioned. “I’m too old to care.”