Platner is out (hooray!). Dems have a couple of weeks or so to pick a new candidate. How will they do it? Who will they pick? How will that candidate fare against Collins?
If they can pull it together, I hope they do a statewide caucus (since another primary election is probably impossible on such short notice), and I hope Troy Jackson wins.
Ideally they just poll a bunch of names and pick who does the best. That seems like the simplest way.
The obvious flaw to this approach is that the candidates won’t be vetted and may have their own disastrous baggage. Prioritizing previous office holders might help mitigate that risk.
Also polling being skewed by name recognition, but they’re on a tight timeline. It isn’t going to be perfect.
Nominating Janet Mills straight up seems like a bad idea.
Candidates like Jackson, who have a lengthy political track record, are less risky.
According to this, the party will have a convention with hundreds of delegates to choose the candidate. I’m not sure if that’s as good as a caucus, but maybe it’s the only possibility, logistically speaking. But at least it’s not just picking a name without a process.
I’ll still root for Jackson.
Yeah, he’s been in the state legislature mostly-continually for the past couple of decades, including as president of the senate. Whatever skeletons he has have almost certainly already come out of the closet. That’s the kind of candidate you look for, for the Senate.
Has Platner endorsed anyone else?
Whoever has the best chance of winning the general election should run. Whoever that is, I have no idea.
(I’ve posted this link twice today — what’s one more 
)
For those wanting to get a feel for Maine state senator Troy Jackson, who stands now as a potential opponent of Susan Collins in the general election, NPR’s A Martinez interviewed Jackson this morning on Morning Edition.
My impressions are that Jackson is not an Obama-style shot of political lightning or anything … but he comes across as an earnest servant of the people. for what that’s worth. Interesting to me is that the big thing that’s going to distinguish Jackson from the “Establishment Democrat” (to whom that matters) is his accent – Jackson more or less sounds like a rural Canadian. Basically the Maine version of Adam Sandler’s Cajun Man. Jackson is in no way slick or polished compared to, say, a Gavin Newsom. That’s not to say Jackson came off as slow-witted or in-over-his-head–just that he’s a different flavor of politician than is usually seen on the national stage (US Senator John Kennedy [R-LA] is superficially similar, but is putting on an aw-shucks act).
To be fair, it has to be David Costello. After all, he came in second among candidates still in the race. Eliminate Mills and Platner, who both withdrew- Costello. I mean, he was actually in the election, people voted for him.
https://ballotpedia.org/David_Costello
https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Senate_election_in_Maine,_2026_(June_9_Democratic_primary)
Costello’s experience included working as an environmental policy consultant. Costello also ran for Senate in 2024. In that election, he placed third of four candidates and earned 10.8% of the vote statewide. Costello’s campaign website said he ran “to help in ending the Trump Administration and GOP Congress’s assault on our values, democracy, and environment.”[9]
No, it absolutely does not. Costello is of course welcome to make his pitch like anyone else at the convention the Maine Dems just announced, but that’s all he (or anyone else) deserves.
And when Biden withdrew from the race, the second place in his primary was Robert Kennedy Jr.
Except people voted for a Ticket, which included Kamala Harris as Veep.
I think it’s worthwhile to hold a caucus, to at least reduce the appearance/claims of backroom dealing and ignoring the will of the voters (or the ones who supported Platner at least). The DNC is hopefully learning that the prior heavily center-left (emphasis on center) platform isn’t as popular as they think it is, especially when combined with older candidates who are, or are portrayed as out of touch with actual voters.
“Fairness” is laudable in children and individuals, but it doesn’t normally have any strong standing under the Law, probably for good reason due to the inherent subjectivity.
I fully expect the Maine Democrats to make the selection based on something stupid. However, even I don’t think they’ll do something as dumb as that.
Yeah, once an election is adjudicated (in this case a primary), the second-placer is just no longer running since there is no longer a race for THAT election. If the party rules under Maine election law say there has to be a replacement selected anew, it’s a fresh race as it were.
A lot more people voted against him.
I’m glad they at least have a couple of weeks to decide and not just a couple of days.
The brokered convention approach is the best option at this point. The whole reason we’re here is the “primary voters are obsessed, extreme, and unrepresentative” problem - the existing process chose a horrible candidate who has put the Democratic ticket in a hole. A caucus would of course be the worst possible option since that just magnifies the same problem (normal people cannot go stand around a high school gym for 17 hours on a random Tuesday so you get a candidate chosen entirely by fanatics, the unemployable, and retirees on death’s door). Getting everyone on board with "children, the point of this exercise is to pick someone who can win the fucking election by appealing to the persuadable swing voters" is essential, so the more people involved who have some sort of sense of how politics works, the better.
Ryan, from Cabin Masters!
This is a joke answer, but seriously, this dude seems cool and scandal-free. I think he’d be a fine representative. But he’d make Fetterman look professional. 
God forbid the Democratic electorate get a say!
Turning up on my feeed today was Patrick Dempsey turning down the opportunity to throw his hat in the ring. I was unaware that he is from Maine and apparently very active with charitable works there.