In many ways, Janet Mills is the ideal Democratic recruit to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins, a fifth-term moderate with a track record of beating well-funded challengers. Mills is a two-term governor with a history of outperforming her party and a record of pushing back against President Donald Trump.
But there’s one issue her detractors raise: She’s 77. If she beats the 72-year-old Collins next year, Mills would become the oldest freshman senator in history.
Mills’ formal entry into Maine’s Senate race Tuesday sets up one of several primaries that could be fought explicitly or implicitly on the issue of age. A series of midterm races will test whether Democratic voters are looking for proven commodities or a new generation of voices as they grasp for a foothold on Capitol Hill for the last two years of Trump’s presidency.
“Janet Mills is ten years older than I am, and now I’m wondering why I decided not to run for Congress again next year because I didn’t want to be part of the aging problem in Congress,” said former US Rep. Susan Wild, a Pennsylvania Democrat, on X.
Residents vote during the New York City mayoral primary election at the Brooklyn Museum polling station on June 22, 2021. – Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images
In Massachusetts, Rep. Seth Moulton, the 46-year-old sixth-term House member, is weighing challenging 79-year-old Sen. Ed Markey, a progressive who at the end of his current term will have spent a combined 50 years in the House and the Senate. In Washington, DC, longtime Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, 86, faces multiple serious primary challengers and questions about whether she’s vigorous enough to push back against Trump’s crackdown in the capital.
“The old playbook isn’t working, so this is exactly the debate Democrats need to have right now. Personally, I don’t get saying we want to build the future while recycling leadership from the past. Voters are asking for new energy, new ideas, and leadership that fights like hell against Trump but also lays out a positive vision for America,” said Moulton.
In California, prominent Democratic incumbents including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Brad Sherman have drawn Democratic opponents. Others, including Reps. Jerry Nadler of New York and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, have announced retirements after younger Democrats launched runs against them.
And in New York City’s mayoral race, the Democratic primary winner, 33-year-old progressive Zohran Mamdani, faces former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who at 67 is seeking to make a political comeback even after losing to Mamdani in the primary.
Some Democrats are still arguing over former President Joe Biden’s decision to run for re-election in 2024, which ended after his calamitous debate performance. Former Vice President Kamala Harris replaced him and lost to Trump.
And liberals still rue Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg not retiring during a Democratic presidency. Her death in 2020 handed Trump an opportunity to solidify a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority at the end of his first term that later overturned Roe v. Wade and struck down a federally guaranteed right to abortion.
Mills argues she’s been called to fight back against Collins and Trump
Mills launched her campaign Tuesday morning with a two-minute video emphasizing her legal battle against the Trump administration earlier this year over the president’s efforts to freeze federal funds for Maine due to policies over transgender student participation in sports.
“Honestly, if this president and this Congress were doing things that were even remotely acceptable, I wouldn’t be running for the US Senate,” Mills says in the video. “But when Trump rips away health care from millions of Americans and drives up costs on everything from groceries to housing to trucks and cars, then turns around and gives corporate CEOs a massive tax cut, and Susan Collins helps him do it, after she helped him overturn Roe v. Wade, I hear my father’s voice saying, ‘Fight back, Janet.’”
Mills also told the Boston Globe that she “would not plan to serve more than one term.”
She enters a primary in which Graham Platner, the gruff 41-year-old Army and Marine veteran and oyster farmer, has won a growing number of admirers within the party for his plain-spoken populism.
“We need more candidates like this,” New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich said on X earlier this month, sharing Platner’s biographical video.
Also running are Dan Kleban, the co-founder of Maine Beer Company and Jordan Wood, who served as a chief of staff to former Rep. Katie Porter. Both are decades younger than Mills as well.
Mills’ waiting until relatively late in the cycle for candidates to enter a Senate race has fostered some Democratic operatives’ existing doubts about her running. Operatives critical of her bid worry she is not fully up to or committed to the race, and some feel like by the vacuum she left the last few months gave other candidates time to gain traction.
A person involved with Mills’ launch said her timing was only about dealing with state business. The governor, the person said, was never planning to make this run, but feels like her campaign is a response to what the country is facing with Trump in the White House and the Senate majority in the balance.
“We’ve tried to put up untested candidates against Susan Collins before and we’ve lost pretty badly,” the person said, referring to Sara Gideon, the former state House speaker who lost a well-funded race to Collins in 2020.
Officially, Democratic leaders are keeping their thumbs off the scale in Maine. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee will not endorse Mills out of the gate.
But many national Democratic operatives and leaders already see her as the stronger candidate for the general election, even as they prepare for what they assume will be a competitive primary.
“The key here is that Susan Collins has never faced a candidate like Janet Mills with a record,” one national Democratic operative told CNN, while also noting that Collins was “just the most difficult candidate to beat.”
This story and headline have been updated.
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