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by\u00a0Gabrielle Gurley<\/a><\/strong> July 9, 2026 (Prospect.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Nirav](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prospect.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Gurley-ME-Senate-070926.jpg?fit=1200%2C748&ssl=1\")
There had been an uneasy expectation in Maine political circles that something else was going to drop with Graham Platner. After this week\u2019s rape allegation, his swift downfall is not surprising. The harbormaster of Sullivan has joined the sad and mostly male parade of American politicians who operate under the conceit that their past transgressions will never outpace them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But eventually, on Wednesday night, Platner stepped aside. And the question now turns to who will replace him, through a statewide convention in a couple of weeks, as the Prospect<\/em> has reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More from Gabrielle Gurley<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Maine is a very small state when it comes to politics: The political players all know each other well. Unless there are the darkest secrets among the major contenders, the skeletons in those closets have already smashed to the floor. The knowns are known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The politician who can generate the same kind of excitement<\/a> that the charismatic Platner did doesn\u2019t exist in Maine. His candidacy had already fueled infighting between progressives enthused by the new entrant and allies of Gov. Janet Mills. That competition has no winner in the conventional sense and will complicate the campaign over the next few months\u2014if not completely blow it up. Which means that the next candidate must have the skill set to squelch the Democratic civil war and wage the uphill battle of defeating Susan Collins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All three meet the first prerequisite for a candidacy under least-best circumstance: statewide name recognition.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n One entrant, Maine state Rep. Valli Geiger (D-Rockland) says she has Platner\u2019s backing<\/a>, a dubious honor for the Mid-Coast Mainer given his deep tarnish. (The Platner campaign has a different story.) Another person with traction is Maine Beer Company co-founder Dan Kleban. He dropped out of the Senate race early on. \u201cI\u2019ve spent years talking to Mainers over a beer in our taproom and throughout the community \u2026 I\u2019m ready to fight for Mainers and bring a new generation of leadership to Washington,\u201d he said<\/a> in a Wednesday afternoon statement. Jordan Wood, a former House staffer and third-place finisher in the Second Congressional District, is reportedly interested, but like Geiger lacks a statewide profile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The major contenders competing for the Senate slot, therefore, boil down to three former Democratic candidates for governor. There\u2019s Troy Jackson, the former state Senate president; Shenna Bellows, the secretary of state; and Dr. Nirav Shah,<\/em> former head of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, who directed the state\u2019s COVID-19 response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of them meet the first prerequisite for a candidacy under least-best circumstance: statewide name recognition boosted by their primary campaigns for governor. The question is whether a deflated, angry voter and volunteer base can be invigorated by one of them to defeat a senator who should be on a course to retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Jackson campaign\u2019s \u201cDraft Troy\u201d movement is well under way. The former Senate president from the tiny hamlet of Allagash, population 237, in Aroostook County in the North Maine Woods, is a logger on his fifth pacemaker who never had health insurance<\/a> until he served in the legislature. He had been endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders for governor\u2014and now by Sanders\u2019s Our Revolution group for the Senate. He\u2019s the most Platner-esque of the trio, and has been serving up robust critiques of \u201cthe system\u201d that makes life difficult to impossible for working Mainers for decades. (He has said that he would not want Platner\u2019s endorsement.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n His top campaign planks rested on confronting the housing crisis, lowering child care costs, and restoring tribal sovereignty to the state\u2019s Wabanaki Nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I interviewed the sharp, plain-speaking Jackson in the Before Times, when he won his state Senate seat by a slim three percentage points in 2016. After the presidential election, he told me<\/a> why Donald Trump won.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On trade: \u201cDonald Trump understood that so many people feel like they are losing what they have in life because of bad trade deals and things like that. I flat-out don\u2019t believe that he will do anything to help in that regard. But he made it a huge issue. He was very adamant that he was going to change those trade deals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Analysis that goes beyond the noise, from Dayen, Kuttner, Meyerson, and more.Sign up<\/p>\n\n\n\n No paywall, no programmatic ads \u2014 just the reporting. Unsubscribe anytime. Submitting your email signs you up for The Daily Prospect, Today on TAP, Aftermath, and Weekend Reads.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n On the far right: \u201cWhat the far-right has done so well is that they have convinced people that, when they are struggling, don\u2019t ever look up at where the problem actually is, keep your eyes down on those less fortunate. It\u2019s not the guy who gets $40 million in some type of government program that didn\u2019t do shit to produce any jobs. It is not the people on Wall Street that completely screw up the economy that we had to bail out. It\u2019s those bums down there who are getting $500, $600 a month on TANF<\/a>. Get rid of them and your life is going to be better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of the five major Democratic candidates for governor, Jackson, Bellows, and the eventual winner Hannah Pingree\u2014the former Speaker of the Maine House\u2014formed a pact all agreeing<\/a> to rank each other. Maine uses ranked-choice voting for many of its elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the legislature, Jackson had the reputation as a difficult colleague, with a fair share of failures to communicate with other lawmakers and the governor\u2019s office. Some allies of Mills have categorically dismissed his run for governor, exhibiting more than a hint of snobbery toward the sharp, plain-speaking Mainer. Given the tenor of the times on Capitol Hill, he might fit right in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bellows has tussled with Collins before. After stepping down as executive director of the ACLU of Maine, she was the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, running against Collins in 2014. The senator rolled over her in a landslide. She rebounded after a stint in the Maine Senate, becoming secretary of state in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bellows has emerged as a solid defender against multiple Trump administration threats. The secretary of state shrugged off the Justice Department\u2019s latest voting lawsuit, demanding the state\u2019s \u201ccomplete and unredacted\u201d voter rolls. The U.S. District Court in Maine dismissed<\/a> the case in May. The Justice Department\u2019s most recent lawsuit centers on the secretary of state\u2019s refusal to provide undercover license plates to ICE and other Homeland Security agencies. \u201cWe don\u2019t have secret police in a democracy,\u201d Bellows said in a statement, \u201cand covert civil immigration enforcement is not something Maine will facilitate. If the DOJ wants to sue us over that, we\u2019ll see them in court.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/prospect.org\/2026\/07\/08\/maine-democrats-poised-to-run-lighthouse-primary-senate-platner-collins\/embed\/#?secret=gmogvatYoK#?secret=WFKPXootc4<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In her campaign for governor, Bellows evoked Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, a Mainer and the first woman cabinet member in Franklin Roosevelt\u2019s administration. She called for \u201cA New Deal for Our Economy\u201d that would \u201clower property taxes on primary residences, cut utility costs, boost our housing supply, and provide opportunities for new businesses and entrepreneurship. And we\u2019ll pay for it by making the wealthy pay their fair share.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She grew up in Hancock, north of Bar Harbor, in a family that did not have electricity and indoor plumbing until she was in the fifth grade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether Shah, who would be the ultimate outsider candidate, can make inroads over the clamoring for Jackson or Bellows remains to be seen. He did secure the most first-choice votes in the first round of ranked-choice voting in the governor\u2019s race, amid heavy spending on advertising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shah earned very high marks for his stewardship of the state\u2019s COVID-19 response and has struck all the right notes on Medicare for All. However, he\u2019s also a transplant born and raised in Wisconsin with only seven years in Maine, a tough r\u00e9sum\u00e9 in a state that measures Maine-ness in generations, not years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A flash poll<\/a> that the Platner campaign inexplicably conducted this week found that Jackson held a 49-44 lead on Collins, with Bellows and Shah up on Collins by an identical 47-45 count. Mills and Wood tested far behind the Republican incumbent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether any of these candidates or some sleeper pick can stand up to the ruthless gentility of the Susan Collins machine is the quandary that the state party leaders must quickly figure out. Maine Democrats need a unifier who can heal the wounds gouged by the Platner fiasco. If the new candidate can keep the spotlight on Susan Collins\u2019s deficiencies, Democrats are well placed to make a stand. If the Democratic Party\u2019s machinations and the deficiencies of their new standard-bearer take over the headlines in the weeks ahead, it\u2019s going to be a very long winter in Maine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I hope that you found this article interesting and thought-provoking. The reason we\u2019re able to publish stories like this \u2014 free of programmatic ads and never behind a paywall \u2014 is because readers like you step up to support our work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Prospect <\/em>doesn’t answer to advertisers or billionaire owners. We answer to you and to our commitment to pursuing the truth, wherever that leads us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Independent, reader-supported journalism is critical at a time when the free press is under assault. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you believe this kind of reporting should exist and remain free to read, we hope you’ll consider chipping in. Every contribution, however modest, makes a real difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Donate Now<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n David Dayen<\/strong> July 6, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n July 8, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n June 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n ggurley@prospect.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gabrielle Gurley is a senior editor at The American Prospect. She covers states and cities, focusing on economic development and infrastructure, elections, and climate. She wins awards, too, most recently picking up a 2024 NABJ award for coverage of Baltimore and a 2021 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication urban journalism award for her feature story on the pandemic public transit crisis. More by Gabrielle Gurley<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Troy Jackson, Shenna Bellows, and Nirav Shah all bring different qualities to a showdown with Susan Collins. by\u00a0Gabrielle Gurley July 9, 2026 (Prospect.org) There had been an uneasy expectation in Maine political circles that something else was going to drop with Graham Platner. After this week\u2019s rape allegation, his swift… Continue reading \n
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Executive Editor<\/p>\n\n\n\nRelated<\/em><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Maine Needs a Lighthouse Primary<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Maine Democrats Poised to Run a Convention for Senate<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Graham Platner Prepares to Take On Susan Collins<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Gabrielle Gurley<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n