Gov. Janet Mills ended months of speculation this week by officially entering the Democratic primary to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins next fall. She joined a crowded field of at least nine other Democratic contenders.
To dive deeper into what Mills’ entrance means for the Democratic primary and for next November's election, Maine Public State House correspondent Kevin Miller spoke with Jim Melcher, a longtime political science professor at the University of Maine Farmington.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Miller: We've all been talking for many months now about whether Gov. Mills would get in. Now that she has joined, does that change the landscape of the race, in your view? And I'd like to start kind of with the big-picture race here, before we get to discussing the primary.
Melcher: Oh, I think it very much does. If you're talking about the general election, you're talking about the best-known Democrat in the state. She has high name recognition. She's served two terms as governor and been attorney general and been a state legislator. And none of the other candidates really have had much of that. Except Graham Platner, who has gained a lot of name recognition in the last few weeks and gotten a lot of national media attention.
Maine also has a tendency to elect centrist candidates. Certainly a conservative listener would not think of Janet Mills as a centrist, but she's perceived as being fairly close to the center, as Collins was — and among some quarters likely still is. And those are the candidates that usually do well in Maine. Now this year might be different. Maybe there is a sense of a need for change. On traditional metrics, I think this makes the race more challenging for Collins. But we don't really know yet whether this is going to be a traditional year or not.
I kind of want to drill down on the political dynamics in the Democratic Party right now that you just talked about. Here you have Maine's first female governor, who pretty handily won her two races. She's a fierce supporter of abortion rights. She's been progressive on climate and renewable energy. She helped enact paid family medical leave and expanded health care coverage. It seems like, in almost any other election year, Gov. Mills would in all likelihood easily defeat any primary opponent in a statewide race like this. But potentially not this year, right?
That's correct. And one thing I would add that, in terms of her national profile, was her confrontation with President Donald Trump at the White House. She really added to her national profile in that in a way that, I think, is the thing that to people outside of Maine stands out the most
One of the things that I find so interesting, what you just mentioned: back in February, Gov. Mills became this almost embodiment of what many angry Democrats wanted more of, when she told President Trump, “See you in court” during that famous exchange at the White House. That's when this push to get her to challenge Collins really began. And that's when she says she started thinking about it. But now, just eight months later, there are a lot of Democrats saying on social media that she's too old, that she's too establishment. What do you think happened there?
Part of this is reflecting something that's been bubbling up in the Maine Democratic Party for a while. If you think of the conflict between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton when they were running and how deep some of those divisions were at the party caucuses. This, to some extent, reflects that — that there is a wing of the Democratic Party that thinks that Janet Mills has particularly not been as liberal on some newer issues. Whether that applies to the party as a whole, I'm not sure. But certainly among a lot of activists, there had always been some unease with her. And then the age piece, I think, plays into this. A lot of this is being driven by younger people who tend to want a more confrontational approach in politics. But that she is as old as she is, is something I think people see as a symbol of her being part of a longstanding establishment. That the Democratic Party needs to shake things up and change, they would say.
As soon as Mills announced on Tuesday, her campaign filed paperwork creating this joint fundraising committee with the official campaign arm of the Senate Democratic Caucus in DC, the DSCC. We've seen some big national groups, like Emily's List, already come out and endorse Gov. Mills. So she's really poised to bring in some big bucks from national sources, or at least to get their help during the campaign. So I guess my question is: how do you think that dynamic of national groups spending money to support Mills during the primary — how will that be received by voters during what could be an anti-establishment election, at least in the Democratic primary?
Well, that could easily be something that her opponents, Jordan Wood and Platner and all the rest of them, could easily bring up. You know, people in Maine like to say, 'We're independent, we don't like being told what to do.' Look how effective that line of attack was against the background checks that Michael Bloomberg and Everytown for Gun Safety supported in 2016. People in Maine can become resentful of those things. I think a lot of Democrats that are familiar with Emily's List would probably give them a pass on this because they know they're dedicated to electing women to office. But the national party being so involved in trying to get her to run, persuade her to run ... on the paperwork, that might make it look like, you know, 'Outsiders want Janet Mills, but the rest of us, you know, we're independent Mainers.' I mean, I can just see the commercials on that now.
Yeah, we're certainly already seeing some of that from Graham Platner and Jordan Wood,. Even before she announced, they were saying that they don't think Maine voters want Chuck Schumer to handpick their nominee. When Graham Platner came into the race, he just created this big splash and seemed to really feed into this appetite that people had for something different.
I think there was always going to be somebody in the Democratic primary, in the kind of mood we have, where a lot of people want something different, that somebody was going to be a voice of an outsider, a younger candidate. And so far, it looks like that's being filled more than anybody else by Platner. But I think so all along somebody was going to do that.
Do you think that Mills is still the presumed frontrunner in this Democratic primary?
Yes, I think she's got that name recognition. She's got so many connections. I think some Democrats might wonder if Platner can win. You know, again, this is a state that, other than former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, with all those weird things that happened in 2010 where Elliot Cutler got 37% of the vote and might well have won that election. If that election had gone on two or three more weeks, I think Cutler would have won. Aside from that and LePage’s running for reelection, there aren't a lot of cases where somebody that's kind of more on the edges of their party wins.
On the other hand, maybe this really is a totally different climate? And what's needed is an outsider? The case that I keep thinking of in this is Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. She upset a congressman that I don't think anybody thought in New York City was going to lose. She got a lot of national attention. She got national donations. And you know, it was, I don't want to say David versus Goliath, but certainly establishment versus newcomer, older versus younger. I think the AOC race demonstrates that sometimes the dynamic does not work in favor of the candidate that's got the traditional name recognition if people feel like there's a reason to vote for something else.
I think within the Democratic Party, there are places where that could happen, and this could be one of them. I think there's still a good chance this race goes to ranked-choice voting. I think there's a good chance nobody's going to get 50% of the vote in this race. And so I would say she's the frontrunner, but she is most certainly not a prohibitive favorite.
Yeah, it certainly seems like Graham Platner is following that same playbook. He certainly has a staff that have a lot of experience in races outside of Maine, running those types of campaigns.
But that's a more liberal area, right? I mean, that's a pretty solidly Democratic district. The question you could ask is: 'Well, how would that work in a general election where one of the two congressional districts went for Trump? That the houses of the Legislature are pretty close? Where we're going to have a very contentious race in the second district, a contentious race for governor?' It's not a perfect analog because AOC was operating in a place that probably had long had that dynamic so some people might be concerned about how a general election might go. But then other people might say, 'Well, Platner is going to bring out younger voters that will be motivated, that don't want the same-old, same-old. It's not going to work against us to have a candidate that's more populist, more Bernie Sanders-like.'
Gov. Mills and Sen. Collins, have had, by most accounts, a fairly good and respectful working relationship over the years. They certainly disagree politically. But at least publicly, they've usually been very cordial and have worked together on issues. But I want to play a bit of tape here from Mills campaign launch video:
CLIPS FROM MILLS’ CAMPAIGN LAUNCH VIDEO:
MILLS: “But there are too many politicians in Washington, including Susan Collins . . .”
TRUMP: “Susan Collins, we want to thank.”
MILLS: “. . . who have forgotten their principles and let bullies like Trump have their way. And it's hurting Maine people. . . . I hear my father's voice saying, ‘Fight back, Janet.’ I won't sit idly by while Maine people suffer and politicians like Susan Collins bend a knee as if this were normal.”
So again, that comes from her launch video on Tuesday. I guess my question to you is: what happens now to that relationship, knowing these two very strong-willed politicians like you do, can they still work together as senator and governor while running against each other in a race?
I think they can. I think a lot of that kind of ad is targeted very much at the Democratic primary. That some people will say, 'Well, yeah, you stood out. But we want somebody who's going to be more vocal about Trump all of the time.' And I think a lot of people support Graham Platner because they think he will be a more aggressive voice. So I'm not surprised. You know that's probably smart politics on her part, to bring in Trump praising Susan Collins, even though at other times, Trump has not been nearly as happy with her. But I think that's a good strategy for the primary for Janet Mills. It's interesting that she's coming out this early and setting that up. But I think that shows that she has a concern about not looking harsh enough. In terms of their working relationship, I think I'm sure things will get said that will ruffle people's feathers. But I think they're both very experienced politicians. They both have prided themselves on their ability to work with a wide range of people.
Many national observers saw this Mills getting into the race as a major development to the more closely watched election forecasting sites, The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter and then Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia, they immediately changed their assessments of the race from favoring Collins to a toss-up. Obviously, you're a longtime observer of things on the ground here in Maine. Would you agree with that? Do you think this is a toss-up overall now?
I think that race should probably have been considered a toss-up all along. Usually the problem is candidates who lack name recognition. And let's be honest, everybody else in that primary besides Janet Mills is not known to many people. I don't think even Graham Platner is known that well outside of the people who really pay a lot of attention to these things. But whoever gets that nomination is going to get a trainload of money, just as Sarah Gideon did in 2020. And I think because of that, those advantages of name recognition that those people were thinking would be lacking with somebody other than Mills as the nominee, I don't think that would have held up over time. I think if the Democratic nominee were a potato, there'd be enough ads about potatoes born in Maine. 'All of their family has come from Maine, and they come from Aroostook County, where they know what hard work is like.' (laughs) You could make a potato, and I'm not comparing any of them to a potato ...
(Laughs) I'd like to see an ad like that.
You know, I could probably come up with one for you. I'd have to find somebody to do the video piece of it. But I mean, it's the old line about how you can indict a ham sandwich, you know, kind of thing. I think whoever the Democrats nominate, because this race is so pivotal, is going to have enough money from national sources, maybe from different national sources. Maybe the people who would give to Mills because they want to keep a woman in the Senate might not give money to Platner. Or people that are strong Bernie Sanders-type supporters that want to shake things up might not give money to Mills. The identity of who the donors are may change. But I think no matter who the Democrat is, is not going to have a shortage of money.
If you look at it from the traditional outside way, you know political scientists have a measure they call 'candidate quality.' You get so many points for having been elected to City Council and so on. Well, on that traditional measure, Janet Mills crushes the field because nobody else has much in the way of anything of elective experience. But I don't think the shift is as dramatic as the national sources are saying because I think they're underestimating how much money is going to flow into this race, no matter who the Democrats have as a candidate.
