Scoop: Bernie-backed oyster farmer raises $3.2M in Maine Senate race
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Photo: Graham Platner for U.S. Senate
Maine oyster farmer Graham Platner raised $3.2 million in the first quarter since announcing his Senate campaign, his team told Axios first.
Why it matters: It won't be a cakewalk for Maine Gov. Janet Mills if she jumps into the Democratic contest to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins in 2026.
- Platner, a 41-year-old first-time candidate, has the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and is attracting large crowds at his events.
- Platner received donations from 80,000 individual donors, with an average contribution of $31, according to his campaign.
- "With this massive fundraising haul, we are sending a clear message to Susan Collins and the entire Republican and Democratic establishment that we're all in to defeat Susan Collins in 2026," Platner said in a statement.
Zoom in: The momentum behind Platner shows the appetite among Democratic voters for candidates who take on the party's establishment.
- Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has worked behind the scenes to encourage Mills to run for the Senate.
- He has also successfully recruited two other battle-tested Democrats, former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, to campaign for the upper chamber.
- Platner has said he wouldn't back Schumer as majority leader if Democrats defied the odds and retook the Senate next year.
Between the lines: Platner's fundraising also underscores that liberal donors are motivated by candidates focused on the war in Gaza.
- His campaign has run ads on social media that solicit donations while blasting the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and claiming that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Zoom out: Another progressive, Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed, brought in $1.8 million in the quarter that he announced his Senate bid.
- Cooper and Brown raked in $3.4 million and $3.6 million in their first 24 hours, respectively.
What's next: Mills has told her allies that she is likely to campaign for the Senate and some expect her to announce in the coming weeks.
- She would join a crowded Democratic primary, in which brewery owner Dan Kleban and former End Citizens United Vice President Jordan Wood are also running.
- Collins, first elected to the job in 1996, became the first GOP woman to win a fifth Senate term in 2020.
