Things aren’t looking great for Democrats in Maine, where a civil war inside the party appears to be heating up as Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills reminded voters on Monday, June 1, that she will remain on the ballot for the U.S. Senate race despite having suspended her campaign back in April of this year.
As background, the Senate race in Maine is turning into a major mess for Democrats because the leading Democratic candidate, oyster farmer Graham Platner, has faced a dizzying array of scandals coming out about him, including both his former Nazi views and a sexting scandal, along with horrid comments made about a dead soldier and other issues.
As such, it looks like Mills is hoping she might be able to beat Platner by just being normal and lacking the same sorts of scandals attached to her name that he has, which might well be true. As such, she reminded primary voters on Monday, June 1, that she hd simply stopped campaigning, and is in fact still on the ballot.
For reference, Mills had to suspend her campaign in April, as she ran out of funding and so ended it. However, she remains on the ballot, as she did not withdraw. Such is what she reminded voters of, stating, “People have the impression that I withdrew or dropped out, but I simply suspended active campaigning. I am still on the ballot.”
Some voters and politicians appeared to hope that she would try to return to campaigning and defeat Platner. Such was reported by CNN, which quoted state Rep. Holly Eaton as saying, in a statement, “It has always been my intention to vote for Janet Mills in the Democratic primary. I would be pleased to see her unsuspend her campaign and continue her candidacy.”
However, it remains doubtful that she has much of a chance of stopping Platner: a poll conducted and released by the University of New Hampshire in late May showed that Gov. Mills only had 10% support, and even when she was actively campaigning, Mills trailed behind Platner by a significant margin.
When she announced her decision to suspend her campaign, Governor Mills said, “When I decided to run for the United States Senate last year, it was believed Maine people were getting a bad deal from Washington, and because the President of the United States was threatening our democracy and pushing our nation to the brink of disaster. I continue to believe that today.”
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She added, describing her money issues, “While I have the drive and passion, commitment and experience, and above all else — the fight — to continue on, I very simply do not have the one thing that political campaigns unfortunately require today: the financial resources. That is why today, I have made the incredibly difficult decision to suspend my campaign for United States Senate.”
Republican Maine Senator Susan Collins, for her part, responded at the time of Mills’s suspension of her campaign by saying, in a statement that was released to The Daily Caller, “I’m sure this was a difficult decision for Governor Mills, and I think her decades of service to the people of Maine.”
Featured image credit: MAINEiac4434, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons