Mills Quits Senate Race Over Funding, Clearing Platner's Path to Face Collins
Gov. Janet Mills ended her U.S. Senate campaign on April 30, citing insufficient funding, and cleared Graham Platner's path to face Sen. Susan Collins.
Graham Platner is now the presumptive Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Maine after Gov. Janet Mills suspended her campaign on April 30, the Bangor Daily News reported. Her exit leaves Platner, a political newcomer, to take on Sen. Susan Collins in the 2026 race, and Democratic support quickly began to gather behind him.
Mills said she had the drive and experience for the job but not the money to keep going. Her campaign had struggled to gain ground against Platner's grassroots effort, according to the paper.
The primary turned divisive at times. In March 2026, Mills ran a burst of ads drawing attention to old Reddit posts by Platner that surfaced in October 2025 and shook his campaign. The ads did not slow him down, and the governor had been off the airwaves for weeks before she withdrew, the Bangor Daily News reported.
Platner, an oyster farmer from Sullivan and a military veteran, spoke with reporters in Augusta after the announcement and reached out to Mills and her supporters. He said he had called the governor that morning to thank her for “her decades of service to this state” and that he hoped to work closely with her going forward.
This story was first reported by Bangor Daily News.
