As Platner Faces Controversy in Maine, Mills Notes, 'I Am Still on the Ballot'

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/us/politics/mills-platner-maine-democratic-senate-primary.html
Reid J. Epstein




A month after withdrawing from the state’s Senate race, Gov. Janet Mills suggested she remained an option after the likely Democratic nominee, Graham Platner, faced a new scandal.


Gov. Janet Mills of Maine, who bowed out of the state’s Senate race a month ago, suggested in a new interview that she remained an option for Democratic voters as Graham Platner, the party’s likely nominee, faced scrutiny over reports that he had sent sexual messages to women outside his marriage.

“People have the impression that I ‘withdrew’ or ‘dropped out,’” Ms. Mills said in an interview published on Monday in The Portland Press Herald. “I simply suspended active campaigning. I am still on the ballot.”

Ms. Mills delivered her assessment to Steve Collins, a columnist at the newspaper, Maine’s largest.

Her comments came amid the latest political firestorm for Mr. Platner, 41, an oyster farmer and first-time political candidate who has galvanized progressives. His momentum drove Ms. Mills, 78, a two-term governor who had been endorsed by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, from the race in late April.

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