Maine Gov. Janet Mills enters race to unseat Susan Collins : NPR

Maine Gov. Janet Mills announced Tuesday that she will enter the race to defeat Republican Sen. Susan Collins, a top target in national Democrats' bid to retake the Senate.

Mills was hired by Democratic Senate leaders after her high-profile confrontation with President Donald Trump in February over transgender athletes, a controversy that sparked a wave of retaliatory action from his administration against the state. The exchange is presented in her commercial.

“My life’s work has prepared me for this fight, and I’m ready to win,” Mills says in the video. “This election will be a simple choice of whether Maine is going to bow or stand. I know my answer.”

In an interview, Mills said the interaction was an “amazing” moment that demonstrated Trump's monarchical aspirations. She said it also pushed her to consider running for a Senate seat, something she had previously been reluctant to do.

“When I was a little girl growing up in Farmington, my dad always said to stand up to bullies. You can’t let them get their way or they’ll never stop,” she said. “And I think that's what's happening in Congress right now… Congress is not standing up to him. Suzanne Collins doesn't stand up to him.”

She added: “I don't think I could forgive myself if I didn't give everything I have to change what's going on in a very dysfunctional government in Washington.”

To defeat Collins, Mills will first have to survive a potentially tough primary. More than half a dozen candidates are already in the running, including two, Jordan Wood and Graham Platner, who take more progressive positions. Platner also expresses Democratic voters' disappointment in party leaders and presented Mills' candidacy as an example of their reluctance to part with “…the same old, tired book.“

Platner's candidacy, supported by independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, is part of a national trend in which insurgent candidates are challenging Democratic incumbents or those favored by national party leaders. Days before Mills' announcement, Sanders says a post on social media that “it is disappointing that some Democratic Party leaders are calling on Governor Mills to run. We need to focus on winning this seat rather than wasting millions on unnecessary and divisive primaries.”

Mills, who turns 78 in December, said she is looking forward to the primaries and wants to compare her accomplishments as governor with other candidates. She highlighted her efforts to increase state spending on local education, expand Medicaid health coverage for low-income Mainers and provide free meals in public schools. She also noted her long history of fighting for abortion rights, expanding access to the procedure after the Supreme Court decision. Dobbs solution and make Maine a safe haven for women living in states that restrict or ban it entirely.

“I am the only candidate in this race who has achieved these goals,” she said.

Mills has established herself as a formidable statewide candidate in her two successful runs for governor. In 2022, she defeated conservative incumbent and former Gov. Paul LePage to win her second term, retaining her position in Maine's Conservative 2nd Congressional District.

Steep climb for Democrats

The US Senate race will present a new and challenging challenge.

Democrats haven't won a U.S. Senate election in Maine since former Sen. George Mitchell won re-election in 1988. Collins has held his seat since 1996. Democrats' much-publicized and notoriously costly attempt to unseat her in 2020 ended in an 8-point defeat in a state where President Joe Biden had a 9-point lead.

Democrats believe Collins is more vulnerable now. Maine Democrats have repeatedly tried to highlight what they see as her diminishing influence as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee amid the Trump administration's efforts to consolidate power in the executive branch.

Her potential ascension to the Budget Commission was repeatedly highlighted by her 2020 campaign as a way to influence Maine's fickle — and often decisive — independent voting bloc.

Mills also addressed those criticisms, saying Collins' ascension to the Budget Committee was a “big deal” but that she had not used her position to push back against Trump's efforts to wrest more spending authority from Congress.

Democrats also attacked her votes to confirm Trump's controversial Cabinet picks and to reaffirm judges they say are hostile to abortion rights.

Mills will become the oldest freshman elected to the upper house in modern history if she succeeds in unseating Collins, who turns 73 in December. The governor acknowledged that age will be a “consideration” for some voters, but she thinks they will support her experience, especially in the Democratic primary.

“I know I can take this last fight and see it through,” she said.

Overflowing main field

The governor's entry into the race would likely discourage other Democratic contenders from entering the race and could push out candidates already announced.

Wood and Platner vowed to stay. Platner, asked recently about Mills' seemingly inevitable candidacy, told Maine Public that his campaign won't change its approach much.

“We're going to do the same thing no matter who's in it,” he said, adding, “This is a campaign to change the Democratic Party.”

Platner, an oyster farmer and military veteran, said his campaign is about building a movement and political infrastructure that will endure beyond next year's midterm elections. His campaign already has 6,000 volunteers, and his town hall appearances have drawn big crowds. He also claims to have raised over $4 million in just over a month.

Wood, a former staffer for U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., says his campaign raised a similar amount over a longer period.

Mills, a former prosecutor, served two terms as Maine's attorney general. The second occurred between 2013 and 2018, when Republican LePage was governor. The two clashed frequently as LePage, often seen as the prototype for Trump, pushed the boundaries of executive branch power. Mills later defeated him in her bid for a second term as governor.

“See you in court”

Her spat with LePage set the stage for her February confrontation with Trump during a National Governors Association event at the White House. During the event, Trump called on Mills to comply with his executive order banning transgender athletes from participating in women's sports teams. Mills told him she would follow Maine laws that currently allow the practice. When he threatened to cut off federal funding to Maine, Mills told him: “See you in court.”

The looming Maine primary is part of a broader pattern of Democratic rebellion in Congress based on the brand of economic populism long championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Platner was particularly critical of national Democrats, including their recruitment of Mills.

“Nominating candidates handpicked by the District of Columbia, running campaigns run by the District of Columbia, I think is a losing strategy,” he said during a recent interview. “I think what we're doing, which is really trying to build a Mainers campaign for Mainers, is how we're going to win Maine.”