AUGUSTA, Maine — More than a dozen Democrats met a Wednesday deadline to declare for the party’s U.S. Senate nomination, setting up a compressed sprint toward the July 25 convention to replace Graham Platner on the ballot against U.S. Sen. Susan Collins.
This is only the first hurdle for candidates who now must collect at least 500 valid signatures by Monday from registered Democrats, including at least 50 from no fewer than eight counties. Democrats have spun up an unprecedented caucus-and-convention process to replace Platner on the ballot after he dropped out last week following an ex-girlfriend’s rape allegations.
There were no late surprises in the field vying to replace Graham Platner on the ballot in one of the Senate races most crucial to deciding control of the chamber.
The field includes six candidates who lost in June primaries. Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former Senate President Troy Jackson and former public health chief Nirav Shah ran for governor, while Jordan Wood and Paige Loud ran for the 2nd Congressional District and David Costello got 8% of votes against Platner and Gov. Janet Mills in the Senate primary.
Maine Beer Co. co-founder Dan Kleban, who dropped out of the Senate primary and endorsed Mills last year, is also in the running alongside six other candidates with relatively light political resumes.
They are Saundra Pelletier, the CEO of Evoferm Biosciences Inc., former State Rep. Elizabeth Dickerson, who represented Rockland from 2012 to 2015, home health care worker Elizabeth Cote, Marine Corps veteran Joseph Leveille, organizer Kristina Libby and Ashley Webb, a transgender activist.
Candidates who clear the 500-signature threshold will address delegates directly at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor, where the 601-member convention will decide the nomination through elimination-round voting. This weekend’s county caucuses will pick 500 of those spots, while the rest will be saved for the party’s state committee.