Democrats breathed a sigh of relief when Graham Platner dropped out of Maine's Senate race last month. The conventional wisdom formed almost instantly: without a scandal-plagued, Nazi-tattooed communist dragging down the ticket, beating Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) this fall suddenly looked a lot more realistic. Prediction markets agreed, shifting decisively in Democrats' favor the moment Platner bowed out. But has the Platner problem really gone away?
Platner will no longer be on the ticket, and three candidates are scrambling to fill the Platner void and earn the backing of his supporters: former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, and former public health official Nirav Shah. All three previously ran for governor and lost. And all three are now racing to convince roughly 600 Democrat delegates that they, and not their rivals, deserve Platner's zealous following.
Jackson has the institutional muscle. A logger and longtime union man, he's backed by labor and the far-left group Our Revolution, and he picked up an endorsement from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) during his own failed run for governor. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and dozens of state lawmakers are in his corner too, and the Maine AFL-CIO endorsed him over the weekend.
Bellows is drawing support from state legislators and activists who backed Platner before he flamed out, including State Rep. Valli Geiger, whom Platner himself once floated as his replacement. Geiger wrote on Facebook that Bellows "did not declare as a candidate until after Graham Platner announced he was withdrawing from the race unlike the unseemly rush of so many ambitious men." State Rep. Gary Friedmann is also backing Bellows, even though he called Jackson's ties to Sanders "very compelling." Friedmann just doesn't think Jackson can hold his own on a debate stage against Collins. "I think Shenna is extremely articulate and compelling," he said, adding that "having a woman to voice that platform is gonna be very important."
Shah, who launched his bid last week, is leaning further left than he ever did as a gubernatorial candidate, and two people familiar with his strategy say his campaign is quietly recruiting Platner's old organizers. "I want all former Platner supporters to know: you have a place in this campaign," he wrote on social media.
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The problem is that Platner supporters aren’t coalescing around a particular candidate. Maine Democrat strategist David Farmer, who isn't involved in the race, said Platner's supporters "have moved to other candidates, and it doesn't look to me like they moved in a block." A letter from former Platner volunteers demanding commitments on healthcare, housing, and ending "forever wars" has gathered hundreds of signatures; Jackson and Bellows both signed it, an admission of just how much leverage that base still holds.
Jackson tried to court them directly during a Monday rally hosted by Our Revolution, acknowledging "what everyone on this call has been through" without ever mentioning Platner by name. Our Revolution's Joseph Geevarghese framed the delegate fight as a chance "to show the establishment that we can organize and win within the system that they created." A person close to Bellows described the whole thing as "a really delicate dance to walk."
That's the real problem for Democrats. If the party establishment ends up more comfortable with whichever candidate appeals to the center, Platner's supporters could revolt, and a fractured, demoralized (or worse yet, scorned) base doesn't win competitive Senate races.
Democrats will pick their nominee in 11 days at a pseudo-convention in Bangor, with delegate selection taking place across all 16 counties this weekend. Graham Platner may be gone, but the movement he built isn't going anywhere quietly. And if Democrats bungle the handoff, it could cost them the seat they're counting on to retake the Senate.
