Some Mills supporters want to see her jump back into the race, but there’s no organized effort promoting her in Tuesday’s primary.
Subscribe to read this story ad-freeBut while the latest allegations about Platner’s past have jolted uneasy members of the party, that encouragement hasn’t amounted to an organized effort to promote her in Tuesday’s primary, according to conversations with more than a dozen Democrats in state and national politics.
Former state Sen. Lynn Bromley told NBC News that she directly encouraged Mills, whose name remains on the ballot, to jump back into the race. She wanted to let Mills know “there’s still a cheering section out here. ” Asked how Mills responded to that outreach, and if the governor might be re-engaging in the race, Bromley said in a Friday phone interview, “She’s out of money, so there’s — how much re-engaging can you do?
So I don’t want to characterize it as that. ” “I’m just saying she knows there are people out here supporting her. And she wanted to make sure people knew they still have a choice, that they don’t have to decide that this guy is their nominee,” Bromley said.
“I can’t speak for her. I’m not speaking for the campaign,” Bromley added.
“So I would just say that she noted that she’s let people know that she’s still on the ballot. ” A source close to Mills told NBC News: “The governor remains on the ballot, and in the wake of this week’s stories, people across Maine are reaching out to tell her they’re voting for her and encouraging her to get fully back into the race.
” One Democrat who had been involved in Mills’ campaign said she would move forward anew only if Platner were to step aside, not to challenge him. The Democrat said losing to him “especially now” would serve as an embarrassment to the outgoing governor. That person, and others, noted that Tuesday’s primary was not the deadline they are looking at, but rather a mid-July deadline under state law.
That’s when Platner would have to step aside to be replaced as the nominee. While Mills is receiving some encouragement from her supporters in the Pine Tree State, it’s not clear if her backers in the nation’s capital are doing the same after initially recruiting Mills to take on longtime GOP Sen. Susan Collins. Spokespeople for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee did not return requests for comment on the latest Platner revelations or on whether party leaders have approached Mills to reconsider her candidacy.at the end of April after she struggled to fundraise and gain traction against Platner, a military veteran and oyster farmer who is running as a staunch progressive. Platner enjoyed wide leads in public polls at the time, and Mills’ move left him without well-known opposition in the Democratic primary.on Sunday: “People have the impression that I ‘withdrew’ or ‘dropped out,’ but I simply suspended active campaigning.
I am still on the ballot. ”Bromley said around two weeks ago, a half-dozen women who had been supporting Mills began considering launching a paid social media effort to inform Mainers that Mills was still on the primary ballot. The discussions were completely independent of the Mills campaign, and the group ultimately determined a paid effort would not be feasible.
Bromley said the group did not share its discussions with Mills.that Platner had exchanged explicit text messages with women early in his marriage. Platner and his wife wed in November 2023.that three of Platner’s former girlfriends described his behavior as “volatile” and “unsettling.
” One of them, Lyndsey Fifield, who has worked for Republican groups and campaigns, alleged Platner once “twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out. ” Fifield, who dated Platner from around 2013 to 2015, also said Platner knew then that a tattoo that he has since covered up was a Nazi symbol.
, “Anything alleging physicality, anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was, these are the statements of someone who’s politically motivated. ” Other women who had been romantically involved with Platner and who were interviewed by the Times — arranged by the Platner campaign — gave largely positive accounts of their past relationships with him.
Bromley said the new revelations on Thursday did not restart discussions about a more organized effort to get the word out that primary voters could still vote for Mills.
“No, it’s too late to move the needle, everybody thinks,” Bromley said. “So we’re all just using our own social media platforms. ” Other Democrats also noted there did not appear to be a formal push to boost Mills ahead of the Tuesday primary.
“I don’t know of any effort, any organized effort in a political sense, to create a campaign,” said Tony Buxton, a former chairman of the Maine Democratic Party and friend of Mills. Buxton said he spoke with Mills after she suspended her campaign, but not since the latest Platner revelations. Asked if he encouraged her to get back in the race, Buxton said, “I said to her, ‘Whatever you decide, I’m with you.
’ I think having decided to suspend your campaign must have been an extraordinarily difficult decision. ”“She’s trying to save face after running a terrible campaign — ‘Told you so, you could’ve had Gov. Mills and now you have this! ’ She was a lackluster campaigner.
And didn’t make her case. And that’s why she dropped out,” the Democrat said. Buxton, though, blamed Mills’ allies in D.C. , particularly DSCC Chair Kirsten Gillibrand, for the governor’s struggles, saying the committee did not help Mills raise the funds she needed to compete against Platner.
, if a candidate officially ends a campaign too late to be removed from the ballot, the secretary of state tells local officials to hang signs informing voters that “a vote for that candidate will not be counted. ”Some of Mills’ supporters are hoping that she may be able to cut into Platner’s primary margin, and that pressure could build on Platner to step aside as the party’s nominee.
Platner can withdraw his candidacy before 5 p.m. on July 13 for any reason. In that scenario, the state party committee would be able to replace him on the ballot by 5 p.m. on July 27. Past that, he could only be replaced on the ballot for extraordinary circumstances, like “catastrophic illness” or permanent incapacitation.
A source familiar with discussions said some party officials were talking about contingency plans, with some names floating around about potential replacements, including Mills, brewery owner Dan Kleban — who was running for Senate before Mills jumped into the race — and some of the candidates for governor, all but one of whom will be eliminated from that race in Tuesday’s primary. That process would require Platner himself to step aside, and he has insisted he is staying in the race.
Several Democrats in Maine or tied to the Senate race raised concerns that Platner is now making the race about his latest allegations, rather than a referendum on President Donald Trump.
“Very hard to see him right this ship,” one Democratic operative involved in statewide campaigns said. And if polls show the general election trending the wrong way for Platner, “pressure will build more and more for him to drop,” the operative said.
For Platner, the pressure is on for him to battle through the weekend and demonstrate he can withstand what Democrats hope are the toughest days of his campaign.to see if he can still credibly argue he’s the best Democrat to take on Collins. Turnout at events, including Friday evening’s rally in Bar Harbor, could serve as one data point, as will the pace of his small-dollar fundraising. As for Mills, she has not endorsed Platner.
But she did suggest in a mid-April interview with NBC News, before suspending her campaign, that she would support the eventual Democratic nominee.
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