A month after he won Maine’s Democratic primary, Graham Platner, the oyster farmer turned insurgent candidate, has suspended his campaign after being accused by a former girlfriend of severely sexually assaulting her in 2021 – an allegation he denies as “categorically untrue”.
Now that Platner has said he will file paperwork to withdraw from the race, Maine Democrats have until 27 July to select a replacement to face Susan Collins, the Republican incumbent, in a race widely seen as pivotal to control of the Senate. The state party said on Wednesday it would hold a nominating convention to pick a new candidate.
But one complicating factor has been that Platner won more primary votes than any Democratic Senate candidate in the state’s history, and energized a coalition that the establishment favorite, Janet Mills, the state’s governor, never matched. Some have suggested that his successor will need to carry forward that energy, while others are arguing the new nominee will have to be independent from him, or risk being seen as his protege.
Whoever takes the position will have little time to prepare for a general election against Collins, a five-term incumbent. Here are the options so far.
Troy Jackson
A logger and former state senate president, Jackson ran for governor this year with Bernie Sanders’ backing before losing the primary. Shortly after Platner’s announcement, Jackson said he was running. “I’m in. And we’re going to defeat Susan Collins,” he said.
He has already filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to form a Senate exploratory committee. Ro Khanna, the California congressman and a leading Platner ally before this week, has said publicly that Jackson should receive the nomination, describing him as “someone who has spent his life standing up for these progressive values”.
Janet Mills
The sitting governor, who suspended her own Senate primary campaign before the vote, is not being discussed as a viable replacement, despite her national profile. She was being trounced in campaign spending and polling ahead of the primary vote, before her campaign came to an end, though she has clarified that she only suspended “active campaigning”.
Valli Geiger
A state representative from Rockland and an early Platner supporter, Geiger says Platner himself has asked her to run as his replacement. She told the Maine’s Total Coverage that Platner called her and offered to back her, telling her, in her retelling, that she had “been with this movement since the beginning”. Geiger said she accepted his support – which he has not confirmed publicly – but that she wanted the state party to run an “open” and “robust” process rather than have a nominee handed down.
Nirav Shah
The former director of Maine’s center for disease control and prevention, who became a familiar public face during the Covid pandemic, announced his candidacy for the Senate seat on Thursday
Shah, who ran and lost in the gubernatorial primary this year, has said his team has “received hundreds of encouraging messages” urging him to run for the Senate seat, and has called for the party to hold “a transparent and open” selection process, including at least one televised debate among contenders.
Shenna Bellows
Maine’s secretary of state, and another defeated gubernatorial primary candidate, Bellows was beaten by Collins in the 2014 Senate race by more than 30 points.
She entered the race on Thursday, posting on social media that “it will be about the people of Maine, who are fighting so hard just to get by, pay the bills and save a little bit for their future.”
Jordan Wood
A former congressional chief of staff, Wood originally challenged Platner for the Senate nomination before switching to run in the second congressional district, where he ultimately lost.
He announced on Thursday that he would be running for the Senate seat.
Paige Loud
A social worker who received about 10% of the vote in the same second district primary, Loud has already filed paperwork to run for the Senate seat. In a statement, she said that if Platner withdrew she was “prepared to carry forward the same pro-worker, anti-imperialist, anti-billionaire vision” from her congressional campaign. Her team said she was “being proactive in keeping options open for supporters across the state who have voiced a desire for a woman to be considered as the nominee”.
Dan Kleban
A co-founder of Maine Beer Company, Kleban ran in the Senate primary before dropping out earlier this year.
On Wednesday, he announced that he’s “in to replace Platner”, and cast the race as a referendum on Collins: “For too long, this race has been about everything but Susan Collins’s repeated failures to do what’s right for Maine,” he said, citing her votes to confirm judges who overturned federal abortion protections and her support for Donald Trump’s economic agenda.
Kleban said he had been “overwhelmed by the countless calls from Mainers” encouraging him to run, and called for “an open, transparent process” to choose the nominee over the next two weeks.
David Costello
A former Maryland state official who placed third in the June Senate primary, Costello wrote on Facebook that he was “back in” the race if Platner withdrew.
Shrai Popat contributed reporting
• This article was amended on 9 July 2026. An earlier version said Janet Mills suspended her gubernatorial primary campaign; this should have said her Senate primary campaign.
