Democrats’ chances of beating Republican Senator Susan Collins to flip Maine’s Senate seat have surged as Graham Platner declared he was leaving the critical race, according to prediction markets.
Platner announced Wednesday evening that he would be suspending campaign operations after new allegations were made against him, which he denied to Newsweek. Under Maine law, he had until July 13 to withdraw and allow the state party to select a new nominee to face off against Collins.
Platner had not yet formally withdrawn from the race as of Thursday morning, Jana Spaulding, Maine’s deputy secretary of state for communications, told Newsweek.
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“As of now, no official withdrawal notice has yet been received from Mr. Platner. A public declaration is not an official withdrawal, and a candidate must formally withdraw to the Elections office in writing, including signature (notice may be received by email, such as a scanned letter attached as a pdf, but must include a signature),” Spaulding said.
Newsweek reached out to Platner’s campaign for comment as to when he will formally withdraw.
Maine’s race is viewed as a must-win for Democrats to flip control of the upper chamber of Congress in November.
Collins, however, is a formidable rival. She has won by large margins in the past due to her personal popularity and bipartisan credentials. Democrats believe that President Donald Trump’s poor approval rating and a poor national environment for the GOP could leave Collins facing her most difficult reelection bid yet.
Platner’s exit serves as a reset for the state party. Over the coming weeks, candidates will make the case that they are the strongest candidate to take on Collins in November with the ability to carry forward the energy Platner brought to the race, while being able to rebuild trust with Maine voters who may be burned or blindsided by the Platner campaign’s implosion.
Several candidates are already in the race, including former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Nirav Shah, Maine Beer Company founder Dan Kleban and former candidate Jordan Wood. Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former Senate candidate David Costello, state Representative Valli Geiger and former candidate Paige Loud also indicated they could run.
The race is still expected to be competitive, Mark Brewer, professor of political science at the University of Maine in Orono, told Newsweek.
“A Republican holding the Senate seat is still a prime opportunity for a Democratic pickup,” he said. “That being said, it’s probably less advantageous for Democrats right now, than it certainly could have been if they had had a less messy nominating process.”
Newsweek reached out to the Collins campaign and prominent Democratic candidates’ campaigns for comment via email.
Democrats’ Chances Improve as Platner Exits Race
Platner’s chances of beating Collins slowly dwindled over recent months, with Democrats having only a 51 percent chance on Kalshi of flipping the seat as of July 2, prior to the latest allegations against him. But in recent days, Democrats’ chances of unseating Collins have steadily improved amid speculation that Platner would withdraw before the July 13 deadline.
On Wednesday, before he announced he would drop out, Democrats’ chances of flipping the seat rose to nearly 62 percent. By Thursday, Democrats’ chances climbed to 63 percent, the highest point since May, according to Kalshi.
Polymarket tells a similar story. As of Thursday, Democrats had a 63 percent chance of beating Collins, up from a 48 percent chance on Monday after the allegations broke and a 56 percent chance on July 2.
Prediction markets allow traders to buy and sell contracts tied to political outcomes and current events, aggregating real‑money wagers into probability estimates. Prices fluctuate as traders react to polling, fundraising, candidate developments and broader political trends. They measure trader sentiment at a given moment but do not always accurately predict the future.
Democrats’ Chances of Unseating Collins—Poll
A new poll from Public Policy Polling, commissioned by Platner’s campaign and first reported by Politico, found that Jackson would start with an advantage over Collins in a general election. He received support from 49 percent of respondents compared to Collins’ 44 percent support, while an additional 7 percent were undecided.
Meanwhile, Bellows and Collins were tied at 47 percent, while Shah and Collins were tied at 45 percent, the poll found. Against Wood, Collins had a lead with 47 percent to his 38 percent.
Governor Janet Mills, who has not indicated any interest in running despite her initial run for the Senate nomination, also polled poorly against Collins with 37 percent support to the incumbent Republican’s 48 percent.
It surveyed 785 Maine voters on Tuesday, just one day after the latest allegation against Platner.
Jackson told Newsweek on Thursday the progressive movement “isn’t about any one candidate.”
“Mainers are proving that now. Folks poured their time, energy, and hope into this movement over the past year, and we’re going to make damn sure those efforts were not in vain,” he said.
How Will the Maine Senate Nominee to Replace Graham Platner Be Picked?
The Maine Democratic Party said on Wednesday, prior to Platner’s announcement, that it would hold a nominating convention to choose a new nominee, with the full timeline and details announced at a later date.
“There is an unprecedented amount of energy and enthusiasm among Maine Democrats, driven in part by many of the dedicated volunteers and supporters who were inspired by Graham Platner’s campaign,” the party wrote in a statement. “We look forward to coming together and harnessing that energy around our new nominee as we work to defeat Susan Collins in November.”
Jackson told Newsweek the process should be “open and transparent.”
“I think it should be statewide, and I think that Democrats, registered Democrats, should get a chance to weigh in on this. That means probably the most people will get that opportunity,” he said.
How competitive the race becomes depends in part on how the new nominating process unfolds, Brewer said. He noted that it’s unclear how delegates will be selected beyond the fact that they will come from the county level.
“How are those delegates going to be selected? You don’t know the answer to that yet. And I think that’s where the possibility of some backlash is,” he said.
Many of Platner’s supporters are anti-establishment by nature, he said, and it could be a “real problem” for Democrats if the process is perceived as not being open. But they stand a better chance at avoiding that backlash if the barrier to entry into the convention is “relatively low.”
A statewide caucus would have avoided such backlash, but it may have been “too big of a lift” to pull off in only two weeks, he said.
Troy Jackson Leads Prediction Markets for Primary
Prediction markets favor Jackson to win the nomination as of Thursday. Jackson is known as a progressive legislator and campaigned with Platner in the primary, but quickly called for his exit after the allegations were reported. He also had support from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the primary when he ran for governor.
On Kalshi, he had a 45 percent chance of winning the nomination compared to Bellows’ 30 percent, Shah’s 15 percent and Kleban’s 6 percent as of Thursday morning.
His chances stood at 49 percent on Polymarket, with Bellows having a 29 percent chance and Shah having a 15 percent chance of winning the nomination. Mills and Geiger had a 2 percent chance on Polymarket.
In an interview with Newsweek, Jackson cast himself as the strongest candidate to carry forward the progressive movement that helped Platner win the primary.
“There’s a movement going on right now in Maine and across this country—people that are sick and tired of the government that we have in D.C., they don’t want billionaires getting more tax breaks. They don’t want people losing health insurance,” he said. “I don’t want that to end. That’s what I’ve been fighting for my entire life. And when Graham drops out, I feel strongly that it has to continue and I’m the best one to make it continue.”
Other candidates have also been aligning themselves with Platner’s message as they hope to win over his supporters from the primary.
“Establishment politicians have failed us. To defeat Susan Collins, we need an outsider who is not afraid to take on the broken system she has spent decades upholding,” Shah wrote in a post on X.
Kleban wrote in a post to X that he agrees with Platner that “the system is rigged against working people.”
How the delegates are selected will be central to who emerges victorious from the convention, according to Brewer.
“If they’re mostly party insiders, maybe that advantages a candidate like Shenna Bellows perhaps. If it’s a more diverse set of delegates, more representative of the voters who voted in the Democratic US Senate primary, then maybe that advantages Jackson,” he said.
Graham Platner Announces Withdrawal From Maine Race
Platner announced in an 11-minute video posted to social media Wednesday evening that he would be suspending his campaign.
“This is incredibly difficult because I know that some will think it’s an admission of guilt, and it most certainly is not. We’re not doing it because of the allegations. We’re doing it because of the structures that are being taken away from us by those in power,” he said. “I also feel an immense amount of responsibility to everyone who has worked so hard to get us to where we are.”
His announcement came after his campaign and the state Democratic Party traded jabs over the replacement process.
Devon Murphy-Anderson, executive director of the Maine Democratic Party, said in a video released Tuesday night that party leaders were developing an “open, inclusive, transparent and fair” process to choose a replacement nominee. She also said that Platner’s team had repeatedly tried to “put their thumb on the scale” as the party considered its options.
On Wednesday, Platner’s campaign wrote in a message to backers that “every Mainer” who has contributed time, talent or support “deserves for their voices to be heard” and announced a process to collect feedback from supporters. The team said that the Maine Democrats allowed the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) to send in staffers to plan a “closed-door” nominating process.
Maine Democrats have pushed back on that, saying they want an open process that would allow Maine voters to have a say.
Shortly after, Murphy-Anderson hit out at Platner’s team in a post to X on Wednesday afternoon. She criticized the campaign for “distracting from the job of defeating Susan Collins in November with false accusations against us,” pledging a “transparent and inclusive process to select a new nominee when he chooses to withdraw from the race.”
The latest allegation was first reported by Politico on Monday. According to the outlet, Maine resident Jenny Racicot alleged that Platner entered her home while intoxicated in late 2021 and forced her to have sex despite her repeated objections. She said the two had previously been involved in an on-and-off relationship and that the encounter was not consensual.
Platner rejected the sexual assault allegation in an email to Newsweek on Tuesday, saying: “These allegations are troubling, serious, and false. Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically untrue.”