Maine Gov. Janet Mills enters Senate race after sparring with Trump administration

Gov. Janet Mills, D-Me., kicked off her campaign for Senate Tuesday, joining a crowded primary field vying to challenge longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins next year.

The two-term governor, who has sparred with President Donald Trump's administration since January, framed her entrance into the race as an effort to check the White House.

"If this President and this Congress were doing things that were even remotely acceptable, I wouldn't be running for the U.S. Senate," Mills said in her announcement video.

"I won't sit idly by while Maine people suffer and politicians like Susan Collins bend the knee as if this were normal," she added.

The Maine Senate race is one of Democrats’ few opportunities to flip a Senate seat and chip away at Republicans’ 53-seat majority next year.

Mills, 77, a popular two-term governor, enters a Democratic field that includes Dan Kleben, a co-founder of Maine Beer Co., Graham Platner, an oyster farmer and veteran, and Jordan Wood, a former congressional staffer.

Mills, who was encouraged to run by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, would be the oldest freshman senator ever if elected next year.

Ahead of her announcement, many Democratic senators had praised Platner and the energy generated by his outsider campaign, which launched earlier this year and raised more than $3 million in his first six weeks.

He has campaigned as a working-class candidate seeking to challenge entrenched special interests in Washington, drawing support from leading progressives, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

"Graham Platner is a great working-class candidate for Senate in Maine who will defeat Susan Collins," Sanders posted last week on X. "We need to focus on winning that seat and not waste millions on an unnecessary and divisive primary."

As governor, Mills expanded Medicaid coverage in her state and made national headlines earlier this year for sparring with Trump at the White House over his executive order blocking transgender athletes from women's sports.

After that encounter, the Trump administration froze federal funding to the state amid a Title IX investigation, but it was later restored.

Mills’ announcement video, and criticism of Collins, struck a different tone than the comments she made last month, when asked about Collins and her work to push back against Trump administration policies impacting Maine.

“She’s in a tough position. I appreciate everything she is doing,” Mills said.

Platner responded on X, writing that he did not “appreciate everything Susan Collins has been doing.”

Collins, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who is seeking a sixth term in office, won a close reelection bid in 2020, when President Joe Biden won three of the state’s four electoral votes.

She won her previous reelection bids by double digits.

She has criticized the Trump administration on several fronts -- most recently in its decision to lay off federal workers during the government shutdown -- and voted to convict Trump in his second Senate impeachment trial.