The NPR Politics Podcast - What's the main thing in Maine's Senate race?

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

Democrats see Maine as one of their best chances to flip a Republican senate seat in this autumn's midterm elections. We look at Democrats vying to replace Sen. Susan Collins, as well as Collins' chances at winning another term in office.This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson, and Maine Public correspondent Kevin Miller.This podcast was produced and edited by Casey Morell & Bria Suggs. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Giselle Pelico became a global feminist hero when she transformed her horrific story of sexual abuse into a public trial against rape culture. The shame needed to change sides. On the Sunday story, Giselle Pelico sits down with NPR's Michelle Martin to talk about unimaginable pain and healing. Listen now on the NPR app to the Sunday story from the Up First podcast. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Mara Liason, Senior National Political Correspondent. And Maine Public's Kevin Miller is also here.

Hi, Kevin. Hi, how are you? Oh, great. And so great to have you here. You know, at the NPR Politics Podcast, we are taking a look at the most competitive U.S. Senate races for 2026. And today on the show, we have you here because we're turning to Maine. So, Kevin, let's start with the basics.

Why should this race be on everyone's radar? Well, the big thing about this race is it involves Republican Senator Susan Collins. She is a long-time incumbent. She's been in office nearly 30 years. She's kind of an institution up here in Maine, but she's widely considered as one of the most vulnerable Republican senators this year because she's the only Republican running for re-election in a state that Donald Trump lost in 2024. So this year, she's facing two top Democratic primary challengers right now. Our current governor, Janet Mills, she's been in office for seven years. She's been an attorney general. here in Maine before that. She's a kind of a more moderate establishment candidate. And then

she's running against Graham Platner. He's a 41-year-old Marine Corps veteran Oysterman. His campaign just absolutely kind of exploded onto the scene back in the summer. And he's generated a lot of interest. Yeah, let's dig in on this just fascinating Democratic primary. You know, one would assume that an incumbent governor would have an advantage over a political new And yet that's not really what's happening. So what is it about Graham Platner? Yeah, so Graham Platner has kind of tapped into this deep-seated frustration that we're saying ever with Democratic voters kind of stemming from the 2024 elections, right? So he's young. He's 41. He's very non-traditional. He's a combat-tested and Marine Corps veteran. He deployed four separate times to Iraq and

Afghanistan. He's a fisherman. He kind of taps into that mystique up here in Maine about the kind of the rugged coastline, a hardworking individual. He's been endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders. He's really this kind of disruptor type of candidate that we're seeing come out. Whereas Governor Mills, she's been in office for seven years. She's the best known Democrat in Maine by far. And there was a lot of support for her to run against Senator Collins. But she waited what people are saying is just too long to get into the race. she waited for several months after Graham Platner got in. And now you have this kind of dynamic between a disruptor candidate during an election year when a lot of Democrats want to see change. And you have the more establishment older Democrat.

Can you talk about sort of the issues that they're campaigning on and their differences? Yeah, I guess a lot of the Democratic primary campaign right now, a lot of the differences seem to be somewhat style-related and age-related and experience. You have Graham Platner, who's a newcomer. He's coming in and saying, I'm going to shake things up in Washington. We don't need kind of the same old, same old. On the other side, you have Governor Mills, who can point to her not only her seven years as governor as a fairly moderate Democrat, but also her tenure as Attorney General and Prosecutor. She was the first woman, Attorney General, Prosecutor and Governor in Maine. So her argument to Democratic voters is, look, I'm the experienced person.

I've gone toe to toe to toe with Donald Trump. I've gone toe to toe to toe with our former controversial Republican governor, Paul LaPage, who you guys may remember. I'm perfectly willing to stand up for the people of Maine. So it's kind of been an argument between experience versus kind of the new fresh face in politics who's willing to come in and shake things up. So not an argument over universal health care or anything like that? No, it's interesting. They both support universal health care. It's just how far they push it.

Governor Mills is saying, yes, she supports universal health care, whereas Graham Platner is much more aligned with Bernie Sanders. Mara, what does this tell you about the state of the Democratic Party? Well, it's so interesting because Democrats in general this cycle got the recruits they wanted. And for a long time, Mills was the recruit they wanted. In other words, they thought she's been a governor. She's popular. She had a famous standoff with Donald Trump in the White House. So usually in the past couple of cycles, it's Republicans who would nominate candidates who are too far right or not good enough situated for a general election. So that was the conventional wisdom for a while, that Mills was the right person to go against Collins. Now Democrats just aren't sure. Some of them say she's kind of fumbled the primary.

Even if she wins the primary, she might be so damaged that it will be hard for her to beat Collins. One of the key demographics she was supposed to appeal to was non-college women over 50. There are a lot of them in the second congressional district, which Trump won. So now I think Democrats are just confused. They feel pretty good elsewhere in the country. Other Senate races, we can talk about that. But in Maine, it's just unclear who is the best candidate to beat Susan Collins. Plattner got a lot of national attention last year in all the wrong ways over a controversial tattoo that appears to be similar.

to a Nazi symbol. Walk us through that controversy. Right. So this goes back to Grand Platner's time, days in the Marines. He and a bunch of his Marine Corps buddies were apparently on leave in Eastern Europe. And during one night out on the town, where after they had far too many drinks, they end up in a tattoo parlor. And he gets this tattoo of a skull and crossbones on his chest, which turns out closely resembles a Nazi symbol. And he says that at the time, he had no idea. That's what the symbol is. That's what the symbol was. You know, there are a bunch of Marines. They like that kind of skull and crossbones kind of look. He has since covered up the tattoo. Yeah, it seems like he went to a tattoo parlor very quickly. Right. Right when it came out. And it's interesting because these

rumors were starting to circulate. And he actually is the one that went public with it first during a podcast. And then it just exploded. And then days later, he covered it up with a tattoo that kind of looks like some sort of a weird wolf symbol. But he's been pretty forthcoming about it, this and other dark times from his past. He says, look, you know, I was in the Marines. I did a lot of things that I'm not proud of now. I made statements that I'm not proud of now. But I've grown. I've changed. And that seems to be appealing to a lot of voters. Yeah, I mean, this would seem to be the kind of thing that in a different time maybe would have sunk a candidacy. But what does it tell you about how he's running his campaign? There were people who called for him to get out. He stayed in and seems to be

doing fine. He's been very upfront about these past, whether it's controversial statements that he made in online messaging boards, some of which were viewed as racist. He's very upfront about it. When he's asked about it by the press or in these town halls he's doing, he says, yeah, look, I made mistakes. I went through some really dark times with PTSD and depression after I came back. But I worked through that, and now I'm a different person. So it seems like that is kind of resonating with people at a time when maybe they don't want the clear and polished establishment veteran politicians.

And as far as you said, he seems to be doing pretty well, obviously, you know, we can't judge everything by how much money people are raising. but he raised significantly more money than Governor Mills in the last quarter of the year when all these controversies were going on. Kevin, are there any polling about who does better against Susan Collins? There are a couple polls out there, but the challenge is there's not many. And I guess we're all kind of a skeptical about what they say at this point. There are a few polls that show him edging out of Susan Collins narrowly. There's some polls out there that show Susan Collins edging him out and Governor Mills.

in head-to-head matchups between Governor Mills and Platner, again, we see vastly different results. Plattener up by 24 points in one poll, Mills up by 10 points in another poll. So I guess as a result, we're really not sure. We're all just kind of saying it looks like a toss-up at this point. One thing I noticed is that Mills has this new ad out, and it is entirely focused on Susan Collins and doesn't say a word about Platner. What do you make of that? Yeah, I think that's not terribly surprising. It seems like the Mills campaign, their focus is on portraying this confidence that they are the best person to take on Susan Collins. You actually don't really hear Governor Mills talk about Graham Platner very much out on the campaign trail. And even the way that they're campaigning is interesting from my perspective. You have Governor Mills who's doing kind of the very traditional small events, you know, with intimate audiences, doing the

business tours. And then you have Graham Platner on the other side who's doing the much bigger town hall events where he is going after Governor Mills. He is being more forceful and going after Susan Collins, of course. And I think kind of the best indication of this, I think it was last week, there's actually a video of Graham Platner crowd surfing at a Dropkick Murphy's concert. And then he gets up on stage with the Dropkick Murphys or this kind of famous Boston band and sings a song with them. And on the same week, you had Governor Mills going to these businesses and kind of meeting with small groups. So it's just an interesting contrast in the way they're campaigning.

All right. We're going to take a quick break, and we will have more in a moment. This weekend up first from NPR News, funding ran out for the Department of Homeland Security and Congress went home. DHS does a few important things, like secure the airports or the coasts or the president. Now their funding is uncertain. and what does this say about the way Congress works or doesn't? Follow us for the latest each morning on Up First on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. We've been chatting about the Maine Senate race and would love for you to take a moment right now to hit follow

so you don't miss our next conversation. On the Republican side of this race, we have a longtime incumbent Susan Collins. She has represented Maine in the U.S. Senate since 19. 1997, yet she seems more vulnerable right now than you might expect for an incumbent. Kevin, why is that? Well, I think a lot of it just has to do what we're seeing on the national stage. Maine is a fairly blue state. Senator Collins has gotten elected election after election frequently by large margins because she's been able to pick up in the past, not only Republicans and are a sizable number of independent voters here in the state,

but even some Democrats. Those Democrats are largely now gone in the Trump era. And what Democrats are doing is they're trying to tie Susan Collins, who is a moderate by comparisons to most other people in the Senate, it seems, trying to tie her to the Trump agenda. And they're having some success doing it. There's been a lot of frustration over Senator Collins, over some of her key votes. She voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. And even though at the time, people were saying he's going to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. She said, I don't think he will. And he did. So Democrats are bringing up those. She voted for RFK Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary. For Senator Collins, she's having trouble keeping some of those middle, moderate, especially independent,

or potentially having trouble keeping some of those middle, moderate, independent voters who have supported her in the past, just because of how different things are nationally and politically as well as here at Maine. So this explains why she looked so incredibly uncomfortable in the Oval Office recently at a signing ceremony for a big budget bill that she was instrumental in getting through. She was standing there way off to the side holding a red maga hat but didn't look like she wanted it. Yeah, no, it did seem like a pretty awkward moment for her. I mean, this is one of the things with Senator Collins. She is the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which, as you all know, is one of the most powerful committees in Congress because they controls the federal purse strings. This is a position that she's wanted for years and years to get, and she finally achieved it.

So it makes perfect sense for her to be in the Oval Office for this bill signing ceremony to sign a bunch of appropriations bill that she helped negotiate. But kind of to your point, she looked rather awkward. She was not holding the America's back hat nearly as high as the others. She didn't speak during the event. And as soon as those images came out of Senator Collins standing kind of far off to the left holding this hat, Democrats instantly jumped on it and put out statements. And Governor Mills said that Senator Collins has gone from clutching her pearls to clutching her MAGA hat. And Graham Platner said, this is not what's.

Maine people voted for. You know, this is a real test of how being chairman of the Appropriations Committee helps or doesn't help, because in the old days, that would have been a really important thing for a small state like Maine. But now that politics is so nationalized, it could be a problem. Maine is the only state that Donald Trump lost in 2024 that has a Republican incumbent senator running for reelection. And it was one of the two possible pickups for Democrats, North Carolina and Maine. And it's going to be a test of whether Trump is a help or a hindrance to Republican incumbents. Well, and Mara, I'm not convinced that President Trump really wants to help her all that much.

He seems sort of stuck with her. Well, yeah, but I think that the Democrats are going to tie her to Trump, even if Trump doesn't get involved in the race. And he probably won't. This is one of those races where the incumbent would rather President Trump didn't try to help them. But still, Trump is so ubiquitous. He is the person who's dominated American politics. He's everywhere, and it's going to be almost impossible for her to separate herself from him. She has an almost mythical ability to hang on because she was considered vulnerable the last time, and she didn't lose.

So Susan Collins has a very, very strong connection to main voters. It might help her again, but it's getting more and more difficult for Republicans to. to win in blue states, just as it's become very difficult for Democrats to win in red states. Yeah, and I'll just add there, Senator Collins, in 2020, she campaigned on basically the prospect of her rising to this chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee, saying that's going to benefit Maine because I'm going to be able to bring all this additional federal money back to Maine. She has been able to do that. These most recent federal spending bills that passed contain more than $400 million for Maine, a relatively small state, that she has personally brought back through these congressional directed spending or earmarks.

So she's going to be able to campaign on that. But as Mara said, the challenge is, is that going to be enough to get past voters just anger and frustration over the Trump agenda? Well, and let's talk about the Trump agenda because immigration is a top thing that President Trump ran on, but it's now turning into an issue for Republicans push back on ICE enforcement and other concerns that voters are expressing. How is that playing out in the race in Maine? Yeah, it's interesting because right around the same time that the shooting, most recent shooting happened in Minneapolis involving Alex Preti, ICE was launching a surge, an enforcement surge here in Maine. This was enormously controversial. It was targeting Maine's largest cities that have the most diverse populations. We saw

similar tactics of armed agents out on the streets in masks, pulling people out of cars, breaking windows. And there was just this growing uneased and similar to what we've seen in other states, this opposition. This was viewed politically as not being a very big benefit for Susan Collins if the situation in Maine kind of slid more towards like we were seeing in Minneapolis. But then Senator Collins stepped in and personally interviewed. And according to Senator Collins, the Homeland Security Secretary, Christy Noem, she agreed to end this enforcement surge because of her conversation. So Senator Collins is basically saying, look, because of my influence and because of my

experience and tenure, I was able to get ICE to withdraw or to reduce its presence in Maine. And if you had a less experienced senator, they're not going to be able to do that. And what are Democrats saying? Democrats are basically downplaying Senator Collins' role in this. They say, look, the writing was already on the wall. As far as what was happening in Minnesota, ICE was starting to withdraw. And this was probably already going to happen. And Democrats are also criticizing Senator Collins for continuing to support what is now, I guess, the Republican-backed proposal for Department of Homeland Security, which does provide some funding for body cameras and for de-escalation training, but doesn't continue. all the reforms, the additional reforms that Democrats are saying are needed. So the Democrats up here in Maine are saying, look, that's fine that she got involved and can take credit, but she's not doing enough to actually bring about the systemic reforms that we need at ICE. Mara, do Democrats have a fighting chance of winning what is a long-held Republican seat?

I think they have a fighting chance. I think the problem for Democrats this year is that the Senate math is just so bad for them to flip the chamber. they would have to net four seats. They only have two clear pickup opportunities. One of them is in Maine, a blue state. And one of them is in North Carolina where they got the recruit they wanted, former Governor Cooper, who's very popular. But they got the recruits they wanted in some other places,

like Sherrod Brown in Ohio or Mary Peltola in Alaska. But it's really hard to do this. And to me, the main race is a microcosm of the Democrats bigger, and I would call them existential challenges. They have to learn how to win red states in rural areas because in 2030, after the next census, a whole bunch of electoral votes from the blue wall states in the northern Midwest are going to move south because they're going to follow the population. That's what the census does and that's what reapportionment does. And they're going to go to states like Texas and Florida and Georgia. And Democrats, in order to survive as a competitive party, are going to have to learn how to win in those states.

So I would say, Maine is an example of this. There's a good part of Maine that's very red. And even though it's voted for Democrats for president, this is a good place for Democrats to start learning how to reconnect with the white working class in rural areas. And they're going to have to do that if they're going to survive. That's part of what the dynamics that we're seeing from the Democratic candidates. You have Grant Platner, who is from a very rural coastal area who's saying, look, I'm the kind of person. I, you know, my friends, my neighbors, they all voted for Trump. I'm the kind of person you need to reach those voters.

But then you have Governor Mills, who is also from the Western, more rural part of the state. Her argument is, look, I'm the only Democrat that's been elected on a statewide basis in both rural and more urban areas in recent decades. So that's her argument for why she's the best candidate in the Democratic primary. Well, Maine's primary is on June 9th, and we will be watching it. Kevin, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, Senior National Political Correspondent.

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.