By Chase Smith
Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, on Oct. 14 officially launched a U.S. Senate bid against Republican Susan Collins in next November’s elections.
Mills’s campaign had briefly posted, then deleted, a fundraising video and an ActBlue donation page on Oct. 10.
In the video, Mills said, “Folks, do you want Democrats to take back the Senate? I’m Governor Janet Mills, and I’m running to flip Maine Senate seat blue.”
The clip was removed shortly after it appeared. An associated ActBlue page was also taken down soon after it went live.
Her campaign then officially launched with a video on Oct. 14, where she spoke of her upbringing, career, and her opposition to Collins and President Donald Trump.
“I hear my father’s voice saying, ‘Fight back, Janet,’” she said in the video. “I won’t sit idly by while Maine people suffer, and politicians like Susan Collins bend the knee, as if this were normal. My life’s work has prepared me for this fight, and I’m ready to win. This election will be a simple choice. Is Maine gonna bow down? Or stand up? I know my answer.”
Mills, 77, first sworn in on Jan. 2, 2019, is the first woman to serve as governor of Maine. She gained national attention earlier this year after an event at the White House, where President Donald Trump and Mills briefly sparred over males competing in women’s and girls’ sports. She opened her official launch video with news clips of the incident.
Mills’s official biography on the governor’s website highlights her earlier career as an assistant attorney general and as district attorney for Androscoggin, Franklin, and Oxford counties, where she was the first woman elected district attorney in New England. She also co-founded the Maine Women’s Lobby and served nonconsecutive terms as state attorney general from 2009 to 2011 and 2013 to 2019.
“My father was a seventh-generation Mainer who stood up for people who couldn’t stand up for themselves,” she said in the launch video. “And when I was little, he told me, ‘You can’t let bullies have their way or they’ll never stop.’ I heard my father’s voice when the bullies in power said a woman couldn’t be a prosecutor. Or an attorney general or a governor. So, I fought back, and I won.”
She added, “And yes, it was my father’s voice I heard that February morning when the President of the United States confronted me.”
Maine’s Constitution bars a governor from serving more than two consecutive four-year terms, preventing Mills from seeking another consecutive term in the governor’s mansion.
If Mills secures the Democratic Party nomination, she will face the incumbent Collins, 72, who has held the seat since 1997 and is viewed as a moderate. Collins won reelection in 2020 by more than 8 percentage points, even as Democratic President Joe Biden carried Maine by 9 percentage points.
Democrats consider Maine a key pickup opportunity in 2026, in part because it is the only race on the map where Republicans are defending an incumbent in a state carried by presidential candidate and former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024.
Other Democrats have already entered the primary, including Graham Platner, who has drawn support from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
The Epoch Times has reached out to Collins for a comment on the race.
The Senate Republicans’ campaign arm responded swiftly to Mills’s launch video with their own post to X.
Along with the video, the GOP account said, “As governor, Janet Mills failed Maine with higher costs, struggling schools, and less safe communities. Now, she wants a promotion. Luckily for Maine, the answer is simple: NO THANKS, JANET!”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
