The three likely replacements in Maine.Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here to get The Daily Prospect Monday through Friday. [link removed]

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**JULY 9, 2026**

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It takes an incredible amount of misplaced self-confidence to ruin the prospects for a political party in a statewide election. But Maine’s Graham Platner managed to pull it off. Getting past the Platner fiasco will be hard and beating Susan Collins will be harder. His exit starts the clock on the Maine Democratic Party’s slog toward finding a replacement. I interviewed one of the standouts, Troy Jackson, the former Senate president way back in the Before Times. He’s still on the mark.

**–Gabrielle Gurley, senior editor**

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Screenshot/WMTW News 8

Maine’s Three Likely Replacements for Graham Platner [link removed]

There had been an uneasy expectation in Maine political circles that something else was going to drop with Graham Platner. After this week’s rape allegation, his swift downfall is not surprising. The harbormaster of Sullivan has joined the sad and mostly male parade of American politicians who operate under the conceit that their past transgressions will never outpace them.

But eventually, on Wednesday night, Platner stepped aside. And the question now turns to who will replace him, through a statewide convention in a couple of weeks, as the

**Prospect** has reported [link removed].

Maine is a very small state when it comes to politics: The political players all know each other well. Unless there are the darkest secrets among the major contenders, the skeletons in those closets have already smashed to the floor. The knowns are known.

The politician who can generate the same kind of excitement [link removed] that the charismatic Platner did doesn’t exist in Maine. His candidacy had already fueled infighting between progressives enthused by the new entrant and allies of Gov. Janet Mills. That competition has no winner in the conventional sense and will complicate the campaign over the next few months—if not completely blow it up. Which means that the next candidate must have the skill set to squelch the Democratic civil war and wage the uphill battle of defeating Susan Collins.

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****ON OUR SITE****

More on Maine [link removed]: The state party could have decided that any process that didn’t allow voters to get a say would be fatally compromised. It did not.

The dangerous myth of flexibility [link removed]: Uber and Lyft insist it benefits their drivers. In actuality, it benefits Uber and Lyft.

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