Nirav Shah held his rapidly developing U.S. Senate bid’s second town hall in Bangor on Sunday, emphasizing his progressive policy visions for Maine as he aims to replace scandal-plagued Graham Platner and face Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November.
As he did in his gubernatorial run, the former Maine public health chief cited his experience leading the state through the pandemic, which helped him become a household name and led to several supporters Sunday lining up to thank him for his service and run for Washington.
But poised to face off in a nominating convention July 25 against former Platner allies Troy Jackson and Shenna Bellows and other contenders, Shah has work to do to quickly convince progressive delegates to hop on board.
“He gives off centrist vibes,” Landon, a 19-year-old student from Brewer who declined to give his last name, said outside Bangor Mall Cinemas before the event. “If Susan Collins is perceived as a centrist, you can’t beat a centrist with a centrist. I’m not saying you need a radical, but you need someone that promises change.”
Shah addressed that point head-on, citing his push toward universal health care, support for public schools and teachers, describing Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, and saying he was “infuriated” by the Trump administration’s “un-American” cuts to Medicare and food programs that helped pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. Along with costly foreign wars, he said Collins had failed to blunt Trump at every turn.
“If there’s anyone out there that’s trying to tell you that I am not progressive, you tell them … that you heard me in Bangor and I told you how unbelievably pissed off I am,” he said.
Shah’s direct appeal to Platner’s frustrated supporters comes as the divide intensifies between the Democratic Party’s progressive and moderate wings after Platner dropped out following allegations of sexual assault.
Shah has looked to rally supporters and convention delegates by arguing that he’s not only an outsider aligned with Platner’s progressivism, but someone who can unify a fractured party that likely needs a win in Maine to take control of the Senate.
“I want someone who can win,” said Rick Borgman of Orono, as he waited in line to join the crowd of about 100 attendees Sunday. “I think Shah may have the best shot.”
Still, Borgman picked Bellows, the secretary of state, as his first choice in June’s gubernatorial primary, with Shah second. He said Shah, Bellows, Jackson and former political aide Jordan Wood, who came up short in the 2nd Congressional District primary, are the “big four” in the race to replace Platner.
Also running are Maine Beer Company co-founder Dan Kleban, state Rep. Valli Geiger, and former government official David Costello, who came in third in the Senate primary behind Platner and Gov. Janet Mills.
Sara Martin of Bangor, who also ranked Shah behind Bellows in the gubernatorial primary, said she came Sunday to learn more about the candidate and how he distinguished himself from the other candidates.
She described herself as a “diehard Democrat” who used to vote for Collins. But the senator’s support for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose 2022 vote helped overturn abortion rights in Roe v. Wade, “was the last straw for me.”
Shah told attendees there’s not much daylight on policy between him and Jackson, the former state Senate president, or other progressives.
He said he would fight Trump’s anti-abortion judicial nominees and grill Cabinet members, particularly Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He went as far as to say one of the reasons Collins has won five terms is that the Democratic Party “has put up establishment politicians” against her.
He also argued he could be effective in Washington because of his background as a lawyer on top of his public health and management expertise. He said he would compromise when appropriate but not when it came to abortion rights, protections for minorities and the LGBTQ community, and universal health care.
“Anything that exacerbates income inequality rather than closes the wealth gap, I am not interested in compromising there,” he said.
Several of the candidates have noted they ran on platforms similar to Platner’s, even as they strongly criticized him after reports of sexual misconduct.
Jackson, who has significant institutional support among state and local lawmakers, said Sunday in a post on X that he’s in a strong position to win. Endorsed by independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont for his gubernatorial run and now supported by a number of national progressives, Jackson says “working people are demanding a new kind of government … that puts our needs over the greed of corporations.”
In an interview, Shah acknowledged the comparative lack of institutional support. But he said his gubernatorial team’s ground game, including hundreds of volunteers, was prepared to shift into gear for the Senate race.
Over the last 72 hours, the campaign has cleared the party’s 500-signature requirement and moved on to delegate recruitment. Volunteers on Sunday asked supporters to sign up if they were interested in running for delegate or if they needed information about their county’s voting process.
“The next two-and-a-half days are going to be the whole ballgame,” he said.