The announcement marks a stunning denouement for the two-term governor and former attorney general and district attorney in the state. Mills was recruited by national Democrats to run and had the backing of Senate leaders, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. For months, Mills had been telling voters she was the more electable candidate against Collins, who has held the seat since 1997 and defied tough political headwinds before. But Mills had recently pulled down her TV advertisement buys, and polling of the race showed her trailing Platner by as many as 30 points ahead of the June 9 primary.
The governor pledged to spend the remaining eight months of her term fighting “relentlessly for the people of Maine.” “I step back from campaigning with unending love, admiration, and hope for Maine people—a people whose hearts are filled with love and whose integrity and humility are surpassed only by their kindness, generosity, and compassion," she said in the statement.
Now even more attention turns to Platner to see if the Democratic gamble on a political newcomer pays off. He has faced significant scrutiny over a series of deleted, inflammatory Reddit posts made between roughly 2013 and 2021, after he served four tours of duty—three in Iraq with the Marines and a fourth in Afghanistan with the Army National Guard. On the campaign trail, he's found himself constantly explaining those statements and a tattoo he got in the Marines in 2007 while on leave in Croatia, which has been identified as a Nazi symbol. Platner has said he did not know the significance of the design when he got it etched on his chest drunkenly with fellow infantryman. He covered it up in October but continues to face questions on the trail.
Platner's lead in the polls only grew as Mills ran attack ads against him featuring some of his past social media posts. As he barnstorms the state, he's focused on economic issues and pitched the need for working-class people in the halls of Congress. Two stars of the progressive movement—Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont—have both endorsed his campaign. Platner's also repeatedly addressed his Reddit rants head-on across more than 50 town halls.
Maine voters have a long tradition of ticket-splitting in the purple state. Collins has repeatedly outrun the top of her party’s ticket, winning reelection in 2020 when the state backed Biden. She’s widely viewed as focusing her office on constituent services and her role as chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee, through which she is able to bring back money to Maine.
Asked earlier this month about the prospect of Mills suspending her campaign, Platner told TIME, “This is a campaign to beat Susan Collins. It is also a campaign to entirely change how people in Maine engage with politics, and that is a project that, quite frankly, looks the same regardless of who we're running against.”
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