Maine Mamdani? Hard-Left Senate Candidate Surges in New Poll

Graham Platner, a hard-left Democrat who has accused Israel of “genocide” and called for “Medicare for All,” leads every candidate in a new poll for Maine’s 2026 Senate race.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins is seeking reelection and has two major challengers in the Democrat Senate primary: Platner and Gov. Janet Mills.

In new polling from Emerson College, Platner leads Mills by a 27-point margin, 55 % to 28%, with 13% undecided.

The race is closely watched as Democrats must win four additional Senate seats to gain control of the chamber.

The survey, which polled 530 likely Democrat primary voters from March 21-23, has a 4.2% margin of error.

Mills, 78, has served as Maine’s governor since 2019. Platner, 41, operates an oyster farm and has presented himself as a political outsider.

“I’m not afraid to name an enemy. And the enemy is the oligarchy,” Platner said in his campaign launch video. “It’s the billionaires who pay for it, and the politicians who sell us out. And yeah, that means politicians like Susan Collins.”

Mills has run attack ads against Platner over reports of his past online posts that women should “act like an adult” to avoid rape and ridiculing rural white voters and black people.

She also attacked him for having a tattoo of a Nazi symbol. Platner claimed to have been unaware of the historical associations of the tattoo he once had, which resembled the German “Totenkopf” symbol associated with the Nazi SS.

Platner has asked voters to look past his online history, saying, “I’m asking you not to judge me for the worst thing I said on the internet on my worst day 14 years ago.”

Platner has branded himself as an anti-establishment Democrat, blasting Senate Democrats for acceding to Republicans in previous shutdown fights.

His campaign has employed strategist Morris Katz, who assisted New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s successful campaign.

Both Democrats have single digit leads when matched head to head with Collins.

Platner bests Collins 48% to 41% in a hypothetical matchup, with 12% saying “other” or undecided. Meanwhile, Mills bests Collins 46% to 43%, with 11% saying “other” or undecided.

This survey of hypothetical matchups was conducted from March 21-23 with 1,075 likely Maine voters polled. It has a 2.9% margin of error.

Collins has a history of outperforming the polls. In her 2020 campaign, she trailed her Democrat opponent in every single public poll, and by double digits in some polls. She ultimately won the race by almost eight points.

The Daily Signal reached out to all campaigns for comment.

In response to the polling, Collins campaign spokesman Shawn Roderick told The Daily Signal in a statement, “Every single public poll last election showed Susan Collins losing her reelection and every single poll was wrong. In a poll conducted during the last week of the 2020 election cycle, Emerson said Susan Collins would lose by six—she won by nine.”

This article was updated with a comment from Susan Collins’ campaign.

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