Despite pressure from national Democrats, Maine Gov. Janet Mills says she's still undecided about running for the U.S. Senate and has no timetable to make a decision.
Mills is one of the Democrats' top recruitment targets as they hope to tilt the 2026 map in their favor and make a run for the majority. While five Democrats have already filed to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins next year, Mills has effectively frozen the field of candidates as other prospects wait and see whether she'll enter the race.
During a brief interview on Tuesday, Mills said she would contact prospective candidates directly when she makes a decision. She also indicated that jumping to the U.S. Senate has never been a goal — and especially now that the chamber has been pulled into the Trump administration's frenzied push to enact the president's agenda.
"I mean, look, I wasn't born with a burning desire to be in Washington, D.C. — any month of the year," she said. "And what's going on there is a bit chaotic. It's not something anybody would want to jump into and be a part of automatically."
Some recent reports suggest that former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper's recently announced Senate candidacy might help persuade Mills, 77, to follow suit.
Mills is friends with Cooper. She says he did call her last week to let her know about his run, but he did not try to pressure her.
"He knows better than to tell me what to do, nor would I tell him what to do," she said.
Cooper's campaign pulled in $3.4 million in contributions within 24 hours of making his run official. Mills would likely see a similar haul given that Maine is viewed by Democratic strategists as a potential pickup seat next year.
In addition, the governor's national profile has risen sharply since her in-person confrontation with President Donald Trump in February over a Maine law that allows transgender athletes to compete on girls' sports teams. Trump threatened to pull Maine's federal funding if the state didn't comply with his executive order banning the practice. Mills vowed to follow state law and told the president she would see him in court if he yanked the state's funding.
The dustup instantly catapulted Mills onto a short list of Democrats willing to challenge Trump's ongoing efforts to bend states, universities, media companies and other institutions to his will. National Democratic groups have repeatedly used the confrontation to fundraise and the two-term governor became their top target to challenge Collins, a tough campaigner who has beat back well-funded Democratic challengers before and most recently in 2020.
Nevertheless, Democrats view Collins as vulnerable and have been laying the groundwork for a 2026 challenge with sharp critiques of her votes during Trump's second term. So far, though, no high-profile candidate has emerged. Several prospective candidates have expressed interest in running, but Mills' decision looms.
The governor is in the last 17 months of her second and final term. She said Tuesday that implementing her agenda was her primary focus.
"I want to get deeply involved as possible and solve as many problems as possible. Campaigning sort of takes you away from that for a bit — if I do campaign," she said.
