Graham Platner Prepares to Take On Susan Collins

After demolishing Gov. Janet Mills in Maine’s Democratic primary, the political newbie confronts a major challenge running against the Senate’s longest-serving Republican woman.

https://prospect.org/2026/06/15/graham-platner-susan-collins-maine-senate/


Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner, right, and his wife Amy Gertner gesture to supporters during a election night watch party, Tuesday, June 9, 2026, in Blue Hill, Maine. Credit: Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo

Can the Graham Platner whirlwind sweep Susan Collins out of one of Maine’s Senate seats? Scandalous Reddit posts, tattoos, sexting, rapid-fire accusations, and denials didn’t make it any easier for Gov. Janet Mills to mount a serious challenge against the harbormaster of a small Maine town north of Acadia National Park.

Platner soundly defeated the two-term governor who steered the state safely out of the COVID-19 pandemic and stood up to President Trump. Mills’s name was still on the ballot after she pulled out of the Senate primary race on the last day of April. Yet she didn’t get even a sympathy bump from voters in what turned out to be a contest of Platner against Platner: the champion of the aggrieved working class vs. the man who lived online too much.

On election night, after throttling Mills 72 percent to 19 percent, Platner unleashed a rhetorical barrage so crisp, clean, and brutal against Collins that there’s no doubt that she’ll have a tough slog ahead to keep her Senate seat. Platner may have more than his share of personal baggage, but he’s undeniably a political talent. Collins and the rest of the Republican machine will have their work cut out for them in their attempt to knock him off his game, in a campaign destined to focus like a laser on affordability and corruption.


Platner is bound to relentlessly link Collins to President Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and to what he called “the Epstein class” of sycophants surrounding the president. “Collins is as spineless and corrupt as the establishment she now serves,” he said. He defined his campaign as a testament to a “movement” of disaffected Mainers, people who have been set up for failure by “the billionaires and the oligarchs” who clog the halls of power.

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