The state party could have decided that any process that didn’t allow voters to get a say would be fatally compromised. It did not.
by David Dayen July 8, 2026 (Prospect.org)
UPDATE: The Maine Democratic State Committee has voted for a 600-person nominating convention, not a statewide caucus, as the method to select a replacement nominee for Graham Platner. Five hundred of the delegates will come proportionally from Maine’s counties, and then include the 100 state committee members.
While a statewide caucus was previously seen by my sources as a likely outcome, the state committee went in a different direction on Wednesday night. I apologize for what was ultimately incorrect information.
This could easily torch whatever remaining goodwill exists between the party and supporters brought into Platner’s campaign, and brings back all of the unsavoriness associated with perceived backroom dealing. There is no real way to make a 600-person convention representative, and accusations of insiderism will proliferate. It also appears to conflict with the party’s stated goals for an inclusive process where supporters can participate, unless by “participate” they meant “watch online.”
It is unclear whether the nominating convention will follow the Maine standard for all statewide primary races and use ranked-choice voting.
The decision damages hopes for reconciliation and potentially affects Platner’s decision to withdraw from the race.
My original story, based on sourcing that proved incorrect, below:
Despite much shouting and allegations on all sides, the Maine Democratic Party is moving toward finalizing a statewide caucus to select a replacement for Graham Platner in the U.S. Senate race, the Prospect has learned.
Platner would initiate this process by withdrawing from the nomination that he won last month, something that has also been heavily rumored to happen at any time.
State rules surrounding party nomination vacancies set a deadline for replacement on the ballot by July 27, but the party itself is not bound by a specific process. A state committee must hold a meeting and make a decision, but the committee could adopt the wishes of the voters as their selection.
Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson said on Wednesday that the party is developing “a representative, transparent and inclusive process to select a new nominee,” and added that Platner supporters “are a vital part of our Party and deserve to participate in an open process to select [his] replacement.” That statement was buried in between a good deal of invective over the past two days about Platner trying to “manipulate this process” and vowing that he will “have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, nor in determining what this process will look like.”
Spencer Toth, organizing director of the party, resigned on Wednesday over the latter remark, saying that “the future of this race and this Party should not be decided without the people who made [Platner’s] movement possible.”
A party spokesperson did not respond to questions from the Prospect.
Some supporters of Platner have definitively expressed their preference for replacing him with “a progressive fighter.” The Platner campaign has more obliquely talked about how its supporters “deserve to have a real role in any nomination process.” Campaign manager Ben Chin sent supporters a survey Wednesday to give their thoughts to the party and Platner. The campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
The demand to not turn over a replacement nominee to an opaque committee of insiders does seem to have yielded a result.
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The timeline is incredibly tight, but a statewide caucus could be held as late as the weekend of July 25-26 and still be completed in time for the deadline. Several candidates have already formed exploratory committees to run, including three people who ran for Maine’s open governor’s seat last month: former state senator Troy Jackson, health official Nirav Shah, and Secretary of State Shenna Bellows. Dan Kleban, a local craft brewery owner who was briefly in the Senate race, has also announced, along with Jordan Wood, who lost the primary for U.S. House in Maine’s Second Congressional District, and state representative Valli Geiger.
Those candidates and potentially others would be voted on in the statewide caucus, the details of which have not been fully determined. Maine Democrats select convention delegates through a statewide caucus, and therefore have some experience with putting on such a process.
The party has not detailed who would be eligible for a caucus, though the expectation is that it would be open to Maine Democrats. In recent years, caucuses in presidential primaries have been criticized for not allowing absentee ballots and reducing voter turnout. But with a little more than two weeks to assemble, and with the state not interested in putting on a traditional election, a caucus is the only real solution to give voters a chance to have a say in the next nominee.
One rather dangerous idea floated has been to use a web-based technology the party employed during COVID to select state committee members. Cybersecurity experts have repeatedly warned against online voting as wholly unreliable.
This was not an inevitable outcome. Initially, Maine party leaders were talking about a second convention, using delegates selected in February to choose a committee that would decide the nomination. But that was seen as too close to a backroom deal and too reminiscent of the 2024 anointing of Kamala Harris as the presidential nominee after the primaries concluded and Joe Biden said he would not seek a second term.
Supporters see a caucus as the only outcome that can keep the fragile coalition of Mainers wanting to defeat Susan Collins together, and if leveraged properly by the candidates and the eventual nominee, it could even make it more likely that Collins is defeated. The focus would be on organizing and building on momentum that led to record turnout last month, even as Platner faced only token opposition after Gov. Janet Mills dropped out.
It’s not yet clear under what terms the lead-up to the caucuses will be undertaken. Because this is a party-run affair, Democrats could, for example, disqualify any candidate who runs television ads or has a super PAC running ads on their behalf.
The ability to come together has been marred by jockeying from both sides. The Platner camp intimated that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee was on the ground working with the state Democrats on selecting the nominee, something a spokesperson from the DSCC characterized as false. “The Maine Democratic Party has made it clear that they are working to put forth an open process to select a nominee,” the spokesperson said.
The party, however, had not released the details of that process, and as of Tuesday were saying that they would not release such details until Platner withdrew. The statement on Wednesday said they were “developing” the process, and while it nudged toward something allowing voters to choose the candidate, that had not been publicly confirmed.
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David Dayen
David Dayen is the executive editor of The American Prospect. He is the author of Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power and Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street’s Great Foreclosure Fraud. He co-hosts the podcast Organized Money with Matt Stoller. He can be reached on Signal at ddayen.90. More by David Dayen
