Democrats Keep It Civil in First Primary Debate for Maine Senate Race, Training Their Eyes on Susan Collins

Maine Democrats have one thing on their minds headed into November — Senator Susan Collins. At the first primary debate for the Senate nomination since Graham Platner’s departure, Democratic candidates pitched themselves as the person best-equipped to take on the seemingly teflon Republican lawmaker. This year’s U.S. Senate race seemed like a slam dunk for Democrats just a few months ago, as Mr. Platner held a commanding polling lead and continued to rake in cash. Allegations of abusive behavior, including rape, however, gave Ms. Collins’ campaign new life, and eventually led to Mr. Platner dropping out of the race. Now, the Maine Democratic Party is hosting a nominating convention in just nine days, on July 25. This weekend, Democrats in all of Maine’s 16 counties will host meetings to choose delegates to head to that convention at the end of the month. There will be 601 delegates in total, including 101 members of the state Democratic committee and the other 500 coming from across the state. The number of delegates per county depends on how many Democrats turned out in each respective county in the 2024 primaries, meaning that the largely populated, deep-blue Cumberland County will receive far more delegate slots than the sparsely populated, much more conservative Aroostook County. At the convention, all candidates will face off to try to win the votes of the 601 delegates. There will be 12 candidates who appear on the first ballot, with the lowest vote-getter in each round being eliminated from the process for the following ballot. That process will continue until a candidate receives at least 301 delegate votes — just over 50 percent — at which point he or she will officially be the nominee. While there are 12 candidates in total running in the Senate primary, there are only four who have a real shot at winning, based on the polls. Three of those candidates — former state senate president Troy Jackson, former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention director Nirav Shah, and secretary of state Shenna Bellows — all ran for governor this year but lost the Democratic nomination to former state house of representatives speaker Hannah Pingree. That fourth candidate, Jordan Wood, came in third place in the primary for Maine’s Second Congressional District. The leading candidate is undeniably Mr. Jackson, the most progressive voice in the race who was endorsed by both Senator Bernie Sanders and Mr. Platner when he ran for governor. According to the one public poll that has been conducted ahead of the nominating convention, Mr. Jackson leads the pack with 40 percent of the vote, compared to Dr. Shah who is taking 23 percent, and Ms. Bellows, who is winning 14 percent. Mr. Wood received only three percent in that poll. Mr. Jackson is also likely to start with a significant lead in the delegate count before the convention even begins. In the gubernatorial primary, Mr. Jackson came in first place by wide margins at both Penobscot and Cumberland Counties, the former being home to Bangor and the latter being home to Portland. Those two counties alone will allocate nearly one-third of the delegates for the convention.At their debate on Thursday, candidates had nothing negative to say about one another, instead training their eyes on Ms. Collins. Mr. Jackson pitched himself as the most progressive and electable candidate in the race, given he represented a state senate district in northern Maine that is deep-red. He says his most important issue is the cost of healthcare, and that he plans on fighting for a universal government insurance program in the Senate. He says Ms. Collins’ role as chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee — which results in hundreds of millions of dollars for Maine’s economy every year — is not worth the cost of having a Republican senator. “To bring in $300 million … We’ve lost a lot more than that in what she’s given up,” Mr. Jackson argued. “[While] being the Appropriations chair, she should’ve been able to stop ICE, she should’ve been able to stop so many of these things, and she wasn’t willing to because she’d rather go along with the Trump administration.”Candidates seemed to agree on most things, including Medicare for All, the abolition of ICE, and ending American support for the Israeli government. Dr. Shah highlighted the recent shooting death of a man in Maine in front of the man’s child as a reason that the agency must be reigned in. Ms. Collins was part of a negotiating team to fund new body-worn cameras for ICE agents, though those have not yet been fully deployed. Despite all of the agreement between candidates on key policy issues, Ms. Collins was clearly the most important thing unifying Democrats. They all say that her moderate positions do not align with the goal of Mainers looking to stand up to President Trump. “Senator, what do you hope to expect in the next six years that you have not been able to accomplish in the last three decades?” Dr. Shah said direct-to-camera.

Democrats Keep It Civil in First Primary Debate for Maine Senate Race, Training Their Eyes on Susan Collins

Democrats Keep It Civil in First Primary Debate for Maine Senate Race, Training Their Eyes on Susan Collins

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