Why Janet Mills Really Dropped Out
The Maine Governor's failure to gain traction tells a broader story about politics in 2026
This morning, Maine Governor Janet Mills announced that she was suspending her campaign for Senate. Suspend is a legal term of art in campaign finance law; she is dropping out of the race.
As Mills said in the statement she released Thursday morning:
While I have the drive and passion, commitment and experience, and above all else — the fight — to continue on, I very simply do not have the one thing that political campaigns unfortunately require today: the financial resources. That is why today I have made the incredibly difficult decision to suspend my campaign for the United States Senate.
Oysterman and veteran Graham Platner is the de facto nominee for Senate against Susan Collins. There is no path to a Senate majority without a win in Maine.
This is a stunning turn of events for a two-term governor who was running with the backing of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Chuck Schumer. Candidates with this level of institutional support almost never lose their primaries. The fact that she dropped out a month before the primary makes it even more stunning.
The Mills campaign was clearly running out of money. After launching a series of negative ads against Platner, they pulled those ads a few weeks ago and even stopped running the relatively affordable digital ads that campaigns use to raise money.
But the lack of money was not the fundamental problem. The fact that Mills — again, a two-term governor with access to the biggest donors in Democratic politics — was unable to raise money tells a broader story about her candidacy. According to some polls, Mills was trailing Platner by as many as 30 points. She was unable to grab attention or demonstrate any momentum, despite weeks of terrible press for Platner after revelations about his offensive online comments from years ago and a tattoo with Nazi symbolism.
The collapse of the Mills campaign is bigger than Maine. It tells an important story about the state of American politics and what Democrats are looking for in candidates post-2024.
