PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Two-term Democratic governor of Maine. Janet Mills He plans to run for a U.S. Senate seat held by a veteran Republican senator. susan collins Two people familiar with Mr. Mills’ plans said Friday that it would set up a potential matchup between the two parties’ most prominent figures in states where Democrats believe they have a chance to win seats in a difficult majority.
Mills is the front-runner among national Democrats seeking to unseat Collins, who has held the seat since 1997, and was encouraged to run by party leaders, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Her entry into the race is another well-earned victory for Democrats, who also have prominent Democrats with statewide experience seeking to win Republican-held seats in North Carolina and Ohio.
Democrats see Maine as a key target, seeing it as the only place on the 2026 Senate map where Republicans are defending an incumbent in the state, which Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris carried last year.
Democrats need to win a net four seats to regain the majority, which remains difficult because most of the Senate seats on next year’s ballot are in states that President Donald Trump easily won.
Mills, 77, was elected governor in 2018 and up for re-election in 2022. Maine governors are barred from seeking a third term, and Mills appeared to have given up on running for the Senate at the beginning of the year, but said in late summer that he was “seriously considering” running for the Senate.
The former Maine attorney general sparred with President Trump during a meeting between governors and presidents at the White House in February, opposing Trump’s call to deny states federal funding over transgender rights and saying, “We’ll see you in court.”
Maine officials sued the Trump administration in April to stop the federal government from freezing federal funding to the state over its decision to defy a federal ban on allowing transgender students to participate in sports.
“I’ve spent most of my career listening to loud men talk tough to hide their weaknesses,” Mills said in April about the lawsuit, stoking Democratic enthusiasm. A campaign against Collins would put her at odds with a senator who has built a reputation as a moderate but has also been a key supporter of Trump’s cabinet and attorney general nominations.
With the exception of 2020, Collins has won by double-digit percentages in all four of his re-election campaigns.
collins defeated Democratic challenger Sara Gideonthe former Maine House speaker, thought he could win the Senate seat by less than 8 percentage points in the 2020 campaign. Mr. Collins won this election in a year in which Democrats gained a net increase of three seats. And she won despite Trump’s poor performance at the top of the ticket.
Like Collins, Mills was born in rural Maine. She became Maine’s first female criminal prosecutor in the mid-1970s, later elected as the state’s first female district attorney, and the first female attorney general and governor. She served as Attorney General twice, from 2009 to 2011 and from 2013 to 2019.
Several other challengers have announced their candidacy for the Democratic nomination, including oyster farmer Graham Platner, who has launched an aggressive social media campaign. Mr. Platner has the support of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who posted on social media Thursday that Mr. Platner is a “great working-class candidate for the Maine Senate to beat Susan Collins” and that it is “unfortunate that some Democratic leaders are encouraging Governor Mills to run.”
