Platner’s exit sets off scramble for new Senate candidate in Maine
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 4 hours ago
- 5 min read
By TIM BALK
Graham Platner’s announcement that he was suspending his Senate run in Maine has plunged Democrats into a foggy, fast-paced search for a replacement — with a growing group of contenders already jostling to become the party’s new nominee.
On Thursday, Dr. Nirav Shah, a former health official, and Shenna Bellows, the party’s nominee for the Senate in 2014, became the latest Democrats to officially enter the contest, joining a fast-growing field. Shah and Bellows ran for governor last month but came up short.
In early June, Platner won the Senate nomination after more than 150,000 Democratic primary voters cast ballots for him. Now, with Platner having dropped out of the race after a rape allegation he denies, the state’s Democratic Party has been left to find a new candidate with a process it is creating on the fly.
To formally remove himself from the ballot, Platner must submit a signed request to the Maine Secretary of State’s Office by a July 13 deadline. As of Thursday morning, he had not submitted one, said Jana Spaulding, the deputy secretary of state for communications. Platner plans to file the paperwork Monday, according to an aide for Platner. Axios previously reported on his plan.
The state party has said it will pick a new candidate through a nominating convention before a July 27 deadline set by state law. The timing and specifics of the convention had not been set as of Thursday morning. But the party was considering having some 500 Maine Democrats join the more than 100 members of the state party to vote on the nominee at the convention, according to three people with knowledge of the proposals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions. Party leaders emphasized that the exact process had not been finalized, and it was not immediately clear how the voters would be chosen.
It is rare for a party to replace its nominees in a Senate race. And it’s extremely rare for the replacement to win.
The Democrat who emerges from the process in Maine will carry the party’s hopes of unseating Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican incumbent, in a race that Democrats see as key to their chances of taking back the Senate in November.
After Platner, a progressive, populist oysterman, departed the race Wednesday, a small group of ambitious Democrats quickly moved to join the contest to replace him.
Troy Jackson, a former president of the Maine Senate favored by some progressives, said he was running. He came up short in the Democratic primary for governor in Maine last month.
“There is a powerful movement of working-class people in the state of Maine, and millions more across America who are ready to send a progressive fighter to the Senate,” Jackson, a fifth-generation logger from Allagash in northern Maine, said in a statement. He added, “I’m in.”
Hours before he entered, he secured the endorsement of Rep. Ro Khanna, a California progressive who was once one of Platner’s most vocal supporters.
Shah, a public health researcher who led Maine’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, said Thursday at a news conference in Freeport that his campaign for governor had captured the support of many of the same voters who had backed Platner.
“When it comes to matters of policy, there is very little light between Graham and me,” said Shah, emphasizing his and Platner’s support for universal healthcare and raising taxes on the wealthy, and their shared status as outsider candidates. He said of Platner’s supporters, “We invite them, we welcome them.”
Bellows, the former Senate nominee, said in a statement that she was running to “forge ahead with a campaign that fights for working people” and to stand up to a “broken system.” In 2014, she lost to Collins by 37 percentage points. She finished behind Shah and Jackson in the ranked-choice governor’s primary last month, though her candidacy was competitive.
Jordan Wood, another progressive, also said he was entering the race. A former congressional staff member, Wood narrowly lost in the House primary in northern Maine’s swing congressional district last month.
“I’m running for U.S. Senate because to beat Susan Collins, Democrats need a candidate who can provide a true contrast and run an unapologetically progressive campaign,” he said in a text message late Wednesday. He had briefly entered the Democratic Senate primary in Maine last year before pivoting to the congressional race.
Earlier Wednesday, Dan Kleban, a founder of a brewery, said he was joining the contest, writing on Substack that Maine voters “deserve a Senator who will fight for us, not one who enables Trump at every turn.” He also had a short-lived bid for the Senate last year.
The candidates moved quickly to appeal to the voters who flocked to Platner’s movement-like campaign. But they were still beginning to distinguish themselves from one another. Other candidates may also join the contest.
The Maine Democratic Party voted Wednesday to approve the convention in a meeting with more than 100 state party members. Leaders in the state party were expected to meet again Thursday to move toward finalizing the process.
“We are going to have a nominating convention,” Charles F. Dingman, chair of the Maine Democratic Party, said Wednesday night. “And it is going to be representative.”
Another question was how involved Platner might be. On Tuesday, he received pushback from the state party, which accused him of trying to intervene in the effort to replace him before he had even exited the campaign.
“We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our U.S. Senate nominee,” Devon Murphy-Anderson, the party’s executive director, said in a video on social media.
In a statement made by hand-held video that he issued Wednesday, announcing that he was suspending his candidacy, Platner said he was “not trying to dictate to anyone” who his replacement should be. But he argued that the process should reflect “the will and the values of the people that built” his political movement.
Many of his supporters said they felt defeated by the turn in the race. “I am hugely disappointed,” said Kat Higgins, 64, a retired nurse. “I really, really liked what he said. I think everything has to change.”