Graham Platner’s Next Fight Is Even More Consequential

With Governor Janet Mills dropping out of the Senate primary, we’ll now see if a progressive outsider can defeat a moderate Republican incumbent in a swing state.

Maine Governor Janet Mills’s decision to suspend her U.S. Senate campaign and effectively concede to upstart Graham Platner is a huge temporary victory for progressive Democrats in their ongoing fight with the party’s center-left establishment wing. But it will only be a true victory for progressives if Planter wins in November. And the left will be diminished if the untested Platner loses the general election because of baggage from his past or political inexperience—the unknowns that left many party insiders preferring Mills.

The media, the parties, activists, and even average voters across the country have been captivated by Mills vs. Platner in part because the Maine election is one of the most important contests of this year’s midterms. Democrats must flip four seats this November to gain control of the Senate. Maine is their most obvious target because incumbent Susan Collins is the only Senate Republican up for reelection in a state Kamala Harris carried in 2024. There is almost no path for a Democratic Senate majority that doesn’t involve the Pine Tree State.

But this race is also a proxy for broader tensions within the Democratic Party. Mills is a 78-year-old in a party where many voters blame the American authoritarianism of the last year on an 80-something president who insisted on running for reelection despite bad poll numbers and diminished faculties. She........

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