These Maine Democrats could run to replace Graham Platner in the Senate race

By Sarah Ferris, CNN

(CNN) — Maine Democrats now have less than three weeks to find a new candidate to take on the nation’s most formidable blue-state Republican in one of their party’s most important midterms contests.

With the party’s current nominee, Graham Platner, saying Wednesday he was suspending his campaign in the face of heavy intraparty pressure, a field of prospective candidates is quickly emerging to take on five-term GOP Sen. Susan Collins.

The behind-the-scenes scramble is being closely watched by Democrats in Washington, who see Maine as a critical seat in their effort to flip the Senate this November. But so far there’s no consensus pick, and anxiety is mounting inside the Democratic Party about how to elevate a top-tier nominee after Platner’s high-profile meltdown just 100 days from the election.

Before Platner announced he was dropping his bid, the Maine Democratic Party on Wednesday approved a plan to hold a nominating convention to select a new nominee if he stepped aside from the race. The party has until July 27 to choose an alternative.

Some of the declared and potential contenders — Nirav Shah, Troy Jackson and Shenna Bellows — are eyeing the Senate race fresh off their own failed gubernatorial bids. Jackson, a former state senator, and Bellows, the current Maine secretary of state, have described themselves as progressive populists, while Shah, a former high-ranking state and federal health official, is considered more moderate, with possible bipartisan appeal.

Shah and Jackson have announced they will be candidates.

In an interview Tuesday with CNN’s Erin Burnett, Jackson acknowledged the manic sprint that any post-Platner candidate would face. “Short timeline, obviously money and all that. It’s gonna be a challenge, but I definitely think it’s doable,” he said.

But as one strategist who’s worked on statewide Maine races acknowledged to CNN: “Running against Susan Collins would be night and day compared to a governor’s race.”

On Thursday, another contender entered the replacement race – David Costello, a Bangor area native and environmental policy expert who finished third in the Democratic Senate primary last month.

Another Democrat, Maine Beer Company co-founder Dan Kleban, formally declared for the race on Wednesday. He had initially run for this same primary last year, only to drop out when national Democrats brought their preferred candidate, Gov. Janet Mills, into the race. Kleban, who would need to build a campaign from the ground up, had been gauging interest among fellow Mainers.

“I believe I can unite our party and finally defeat Susan Collins in November,” Kleban wrote in a Substack post he later shared on X.

Platner has encouraged at least one Democrat in Maine to consider running, a source familiar with the matter said.

Platner called state Rep. Valli Geiger, a longtime backer, to “thank her for her support and encouraged her to consider running if he stepped down,” the source said.

“He’s not made any decision on endorsing,” the source added.

Troy Jackson

The brash 58-year-old Jackson officially announced he would run for the Senate nomination Wednesday. Jackson is perhaps best-known to Maine progressives, campaigning alongside Platner and Sen. Bernie Sanders during his gubernatorial run this year.

A fifth-generation logger and a union member, Jackson is a onetime Republican turned 2016 Sanders voter. But he also comes with an ideological record that could give some Democrats pause: In his long state Senate career, Jackson voted against legalizing same-sex marriage, and has previously opposed abortion except in certain circumstances.

Nirav Shah

The former director of the state’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention had initially received the most votes in this year’s gubernatorial election, though he ultimately placed second after ranked-choice votes were reallocated.

Shah was tapped by Mills to lead the state’s health agency in 2019 and then led the state’s pandemic response. While he was a household name in Maine during the time, his critics point out that he did not grow up in the state and point out that he voted in Georgia in the 2024 election. (He had been tapped by the Biden administration as the No. 2 official at the national CDC in Atlanta, a job he held through Trump’s election.)

“This race is not about one person or one seat. It is about everyday Mainers,” Shah said in a statement Thursday as he announced his campaign for Senate. “I’ve shown up and fought for you before, and I am ready to do it again as your next United States Senator.”

Shenna Bellows

Bellows has gained national attention for her role as Maine secretary of state, once declaring Trump as ineligible for her state’s 2024 ballot after the January 6 Capitol riot. (The Supreme Court later overturned her decision.)

She made her candidacy official in a news release Thursday, writing that she’s running “because I believe that together we can unify Democrats in Maine at this difficult time, and forge ahead with a campaign that fights for working people, stands up to a broken system that’s working against us, and defeats Susan Collins.”

The self-declared populist has run against Collins before, losing by 30 percentage points in the 2014 election — a terrible cycle for Democrats — without any support from the national party.

But her supporters insist that much has changed. This year, Bellows got more second-choice votes than any other candidate. That would mean that if the state re-ran the ranked choice votes for this year’s gubernatorial election without the winner, Hannah Pingree, then Bellows would be first.

Raised in a small town near Bar Harbor, Bellows grew up without electricity or running water until she was in grade school and has pitched herself as a champion for the working class.

Dan Kleban

Kleban is, so far, the only political outsider eying the race. A resident of Cumberland, Maine, which is just north of Portland, Kleban co-founded Maine Beer Company in 2009 after losing his job during the Great Recession. Before dropping his initial Senate bid last year, he focused his campaign on affordability and climate issues.

This time around, Kleban is signaling that he’ll aim his campaign squarely at “rigged corporate interests” and “Washington establishment insiders.”

Valli Geiger

The former Rockland mayor and current state representative has been an impassioned supporter of Platner, writing an op-ed in a local paper last fall headlined “Graham Platner deserves grace.”

Geiger spent decades working in health care, including as a registered nurse, and was elected to the Maine statehouse in 2020.

Jordan Wood

Jordan Wood, who lost in the Democratic primary for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, launched a Senate campaign on Thursday.

The Lewiston native, who was formerly California Rep. Katie Porter’s chief of staff, said he would seek the Senate nomination with a campaign funded by “grassroots donors” rather than corporate funds.

Wood campaigned for the Democratic Senate nomination last year before pivoting to run for Congress. He had previously called for Platner to drop out of the race.

“I have been told that I am too progressive, that I am too young, that a gay man can’t win,” Wood said in a statement on Thursday. “These cynics are wrong. They have been wrong all of our lives. They remain wrong today. I’m asking for your support to take back control of our party, and our country.”

David Costello

Born in Bangor and raised in Old Town, Costello’s biography includes three decades of political and government work, including stints on the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s 1980 presidential campaign and four years in senior leadership at the Maryland Department of the Environment from 2011 through 2015. He currently lives in Brunswick.

“I’ve re-entered the race to challenge Senator Susan Collins in November,” Costello wrote on social media as he announced his candidacy. “Maine’s middle- and working-class families deserve a reform-minded candidate they can readily identify with—someone committed to fixing Washington and ensuring all Mainers, not just the wealthy, have the education, job skills, healthcare, and other life enriching resources to thrive.”

In addition to his unsuccessful third-place finish in this year’s Democratic Senate primary, Costello failed in a 2024 bid against incumbent Independent Sen. Angus King, securing just under 11% of the vote in the general election.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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CNN’s Arlette Saenz and David Wright contributed to this report.