Graham Platner is officially the Democratic nominee in Maine to face Republican Sen. Susan Collins this fall, easily winning Tuesday’s primary to set up what’s expected to be among the most competitive Senate races of the year.

Platner was leading the primary field with 75 percent of the vote when The Associated Press called the race at 9:23 p.m. Eastern time. 

Platner’s victory was expected after Gov. Janet Mills ended her campaign in late April, though her name remained on the ballot. But it was unclear what his margin of victory would be after his campaign was rocked by recent news reports that revealed extramarital sexual text messages and descriptions of emotionally volatile relationships with Platner by three former girlfriends. 

Speaking at an election night party Tuesday, Platner, a military veteran and oyster farmer, indirectly addressed the news reports but also sought to shift the narrative to the grassroots anger that helped to fuel his political rise. 

“If you believe, as I do, that we can change our politics and change our country, then you must also believe that people can change,” he said. “The reason I believe that is because I have lived it.”

He addressed the “ national pundits” and the “political establishment” that “keep looking for that one story, that one headline, that one moment in my life that they can define the campaign by.”

“But in trying so hard to understand me, they failed to understand that this is not about me at all. This is a movement about us, about the far too many working far too hard and struggling far too much at the hands of the ruling class,” said Platner, who has the backing of prominent progressives such as Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. 

In his remarks, the Democrat also criticized Collins, who ran unopposed in the GOP primary, for voting to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was part of the conservative majority that overturned Roe v. Wade. He also accused her of “supporting endless wars.”

While Platner has gone after Collins since launching his Senate bid last August, the campaign is now poised to enter a new phase. With Collins the lone Republican senator to represent a state that backed Kamala Harris in 2024, Maine has long been considered Senate Democrats’ best opportunity to flip a seat. But Platner’s apparent vulnerabilities and strong Democratic recruits in other states may be changing the calculus for Democrats, who need to flip a net of four seats to win the Senate.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee predicted Tuesday night that Platner would win in November.

“Over the past year, we have created a path to win a Democratic Senate majority and put a stop to the chaos and damage of the Trump administration by defeating the Republicans who enable his harmful agenda,” the pair said in a joint statement. “Susan Collins has never been more vulnerable after she voted with Trump 96 percent of the time, confirmed his far-right judicial nominees, and took millions from special interests while voting to rip health care away from Mainers.”

Still, the Maine race is expected to be a bitter fight. And Collins, who was first elected in 1996, and her allies are prepared to highlight her record, including that she recently cast her 10,000th consecutive Senate vote. The GOP super PAC Senate Leadership Fund earlier this year announced $42 million in ad reservations in Maine and its affiliated nonprofit, One Nation, has so far spent $21 million supporting Collins. 

SLF executive director Alex Latcham called Platner a “serious threat” to Republicans’ Senate majority in a Tuesday night statement. 

“While Senator Susan Collins has demonstrated strong character, steady leadership, and unmatched effectiveness, Graham Platner is a dangerous deviant who cannot be trusted to represent the Pine Tree State,” Latcham said. 

The National Republican Senatorial Committee released a digital ad Tuesday contrasting Collins and Platner.

Other races

Maine is also playing host to a marquee House race in the sprawling largely rural 2nd District. After four terms, Democrat Jared Golden is vacating the seat, which Donald Trump carried in all three of his presidential races, including by 9 points in 2024. 

In the Democratic primary to succeed Golden, state Sen. Joe Baldacci was leading with 33 percent of the vote shortly after 11 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday, followed by state Auditor Matt Dunlap, with 30 percent and former congressional aide Jordan Wood with about 28 percent.

With no one appearing to take a majority of the vote, the AP wasn’t expected to call the race Tuesday with the winner to be decided under the state’s ranked choice voting system.

The Democratic nominee will take on former Gov. Paul LePage, who was unopposed for the Republican nomination and begins the general election with a $1.2 million war chest. The 2nd District, the largest House district east of the Mississippi River, is a prime pickup opportunity for Republicans this fall. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race Likely Republican. 

The race to succeed Mills, who is term-limited as governor, also seemed likely to go into a second round of counting for both parties under the ranked choice system. Democrats Nirav Shah, the former leader of Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, former state House Speaker Hannah Pingree, former state Sen. Troy Jackson and Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows were locked in a tight five-way contest that included businessman Angus King III.

King is the son of Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, while Pingree is the daughter of Rep. Chellie Pingree, who was uncontested in Tuesday’s Democratic primary as she seeks a 10th term representing the 1st District. 

On the Republican side, Bobby Charles, a former Naval intelligence officer, was leading a crowded gubernatorial primary that include health tech entrepreneur Jonathan Bush, a cousin of former President George W. Bush, and former Planet Fitness President Ben Midgley.