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senate republicans
'They're Getting Nervous,' Says Platner After GOP Drops $42 Million on Maine's Susan Collins
The latest polls have shown Platner tied with or outright leading the five-term Republican senator.
Jan 21, 2026
Maine's progressive US Senate hopeful Graham Platner smelled blood in the water after the national fundraising arm for Senate Republicans dumped a record investment into the reelection campaign of Sen. Susan Collins.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) boasted that the $42 million investment, most of which will go to an advertising blitz to help the vulnerable five-term senator cling to her seat in November, was the largest the GOP's Senate Leadership Fund had ever spent in Maine.
But while the fund's executive director, Alex Latcham, said it was a testament to Collins' (R-Maine) "history of winning tough races against Washington Democrats," Platner—a military veteran and oyster farmer who has never held higher office—portrayed it as a sign of her vulnerability.
"They’re getting nervous," he wrote in a post on social media, which urged supporters to donate.
Since announcing his campaign less than five months ago, Platner has been amassing his own sizable war chest of nearly $8 million on the back of small-dollar donations, including $4.7 million in just the final quarter of 2025.
If Democrats have any chance of flipping four seats and retaking the Senate in the midterms later this year, the path will almost certainly include unseating Collins.
Polling out of Maine has varied, but has more often tended to show both Platner and his centrist primary opponent, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, running within the margin of error against Collins or outright leading her.
The majority of polls logged by the New York Times show Platner leading Mills in June's Democratic primary, including one released in mid-December by the progressive-leaning polling firm Workbench Strategies, which showed him ahead by 15 points. But the results vary widely, with some showing Platner up by as many as 34 points over Mills, while others show Mills leading by double digits.
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This Government Shutdown Is Not Normal
Democrats finally have some bargaining leverage. They should use it.
Oct 03, 2025
I’ve been directly involved in government shutdowns, one when I was secretary of labor. It’s hard for me to describe the fear, frustration, and chaos that ensued. I recall spending the first day consoling employees—many in tears as they headed out the door.
In some ways, this shutdown is similar to others. Agencies and departments designed to protect consumers, workers, and investors are now officially closed, as are national parks and museums.
Most federal workers are not being paid—as many as 750,000 could be furloughed—including those who are required to remain on the job, like air-traffic controllers or members of the US military.
So-called “mandatory” spending, including Social Security and Medicare payments, are continuing, although checks could be delayed. (President Donald Trump has made sure that construction of his new White House ballroom won’t be affected.)
Were Democrats to vote to keep the government going, what guarantee do they have that Trump will in fact keep the government going?
There have been eight shutdowns since 1990. Trump has now presided over four.
But this shutdown—the one that began Wednesday morning—is radically different.
For one thing, it’s the consequence of a decision made in July by Trump and Senate Republicans to pass Trump’s gigantic “big beautiful bill” (I prefer to call it “big ugly bill”) without any Democratic votes.
They could do that because of an arcane Senate procedure called “reconciliation,” which allowed the big ugly to get through the Senate with just 51 votes rather than the normal 60 votes required to overcome a filibuster.
The final tally was a squeaker. All Senate Democrats opposed the legislation. When three Senate Republicans joined them, Vice President JD Vance was called in to break a tie. Some Republicans bragged that they didn’t need a single Democrat.
The big ugly fundamentally altered the priorities of the United States government. It cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act—with the result that health insurance premiums for tens of millions of Americans will soar starting in January.
The big ugly also cut nutrition assistance and environmental protection, while bulking up immigration enforcement and cutting the taxes of wealthy Americans and big corporations.
Trump and Senate Republicans didn’t need a single Democrat then. But this time, Republicans couldn’t use the arcane reconciliation process to pass a bill to keep the governing going.
Now they needed Senate Democratic votes.
Yet keeping the government going meant keeping all the priorities included in the big ugly bill that all Senate Democrats opposed.
Which is why Senate Democrats refused to sign on unless most of the big ugly’s cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act were restored, so health insurance premiums won’t soar next year.
Even if Senate Democrats had gotten that concession, the Republican bill to keep the government going would retain all the tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations contained in the big ugly, along with all the cuts in nutrition assistance, and all the increased funding for immigration enforcement.
There’s a deeper irony here.
As a practical matter, the US government has been “shut down” for over eight months, since Trump took office a second time.
Trump and the sycophants surrounding him—such as Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and, before him, Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficnecy—have had no compunctions about shutting down parts of the government they don’t like—such as US Agency for International Development.
They’ve also fired, laid off, furloughed, or extended buyouts to hundreds of thousands of federal employees doing work they don’t value, such as at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. (The federal government is already expected to employ 300,000 fewer workers by December than it did last January.)
They’ve impounded appropriations from Congress for activities they oppose, ranging across the entire federal government.
Wednesday, on the first day of the shutdown, Vought announced that the administration was freezing some $26 billion in funds Congress had appropriated—including $18 billion for New York City infrastructure (home to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries) and $8 billion for environmental projects in 16 states, mostly led by Democrats.
All of this is illegal—it violates the Impoundment Control Act of 1974—but it seems unlikely that courts will act soon enough to prevent the regime from harming vast numbers of Americans.
Vought is also initiating another round of mass layoffs targeting, in his words, “a lot” of government workers.
This is being described by Republicans as “payback” for the Democrats not voting to keep the government going, but evidently nothing stopped Vought from doing mass layoffs and freezing Congress’ appropriations before the shutdown.
In fact, the eagerness of Trump and his lapdogs over the last eight months to disregard the will of Congress and close whatever they want of the government offers another reason why Democrats shouldn’t cave in.
Were Democrats to vote to keep the government going, what guarantee do they have that Trump will in fact keep the government going?
Democrats finally have some bargaining leverage. They should use it.
If tens of millions of Americans lose their health insurance starting in January because they can no longer afford to pay sky-high premiums, Trump and his Republicans will be blamed. Months before the midterms.
It would be Trump’s and his Republicans’ fault anyway—it’s part of their big ugly bill—but this way, in the fight over whether to reopen the government, Americans will have a chance to see Democrats standing up for them.
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Democratic Senators Should Refuse to Fund Trump’s Fascist Government
Keeping the US government funded now is to participate in the most atrocious misuse of the power of the United States in modern times.
Sep 09, 2025
The US government runs out of money September 30.
Under ordinary circumstances, I would see that as a huge problem. I was secretary of labor when the government closed down, and I vowed then that I’d do everything possible to avoid a similar calamity in the future.
Under ordinary circumstances, people like you and me—who believe that government is essential for the common good—would fight like hell to keep the government funded beyond September 30.
But we are not in ordinary circumstances. The US government has become a neofascist regime run by a sociopath.
That sociopath is using the government to punish his enemies. He’s using the government to rake in billions of dollars for himself and his family.
He’s using the government to force the leaders of every institution in our society—universities, media companies, law firms, even museums—to become fawning supplicants: pleading with him, praising him, and silencing criticism of him.
Morally, Democrats must not enable what is now occurring. Politically, they cannot remain silent in the face of such mayhem.
He is using the government to disappear people from our streets without due process. He is using the government to occupy our cities, overriding the wishes of mayors and governors.
He is using the government to impose arbitrary and capricious import taxes—tariffs—on American consumers. He is using the government to worsen climate change. He is using government to reject our traditional global allies and strengthen some of the worst monsters around the globe.
Keeping the US government funded now is to participate in the most atrocious misuse of the power of the United States in modern times.
So I for one have decided that the best route is to shut the whole f*cking thing down.
Morally, Democrats must not enable what is now occurring. Politically, they cannot remain silent in the face of such mayhem.
To keep the government funded, Senate Republicans need seven Democratic senators to join them.
Last March, when the government was about to run out of money, Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Senate Democrats, voted to join Republicans and keep the government going. Schumer successfully got enough of his Democratic colleagues to follow him that the funding bill passed.
As New York Times columnist Ezra Klein has argued, even if you supported Schumer’s decision then, this time feels different.
By now, US President Donald Trump has become full fascist.
Congressional Republicans are cowed, spineless, deferential, unwilling to make even a small effort to retain Congress’ constitutional powers.
The public is losing faith that the Democratic Party has the capacity to stand up to Trump—largely because it is in the minority in both chambers of Congress.
But this doesn’t mean Democrats must remain silent.
If they refuse to vote to join Republicans in keeping the government open, that act itself will make them louder and more articulate than they’ve been in eight months.
It will give them an opportunity to explain that they cannot in good conscience participate in what is occurring. They will have a chance to show America that they have chosen to become conscientious objectors to a government that is no longer functioning for the people of the United States but for one man.
They will be able to point out the devastating realities of Trump’s regime: its lawlessness, its corruption, its cruelty, its brutality.
They will be able argue that voting to fund this government would violate their oaths to uphold the Constitution of the United States.
Then what?
They can then use their newfound leverage—the only leverage they’ve mustered in eight months—to demand, in return for their votes to restart the government, that their Republican compatriots give them reason to believe that the government they restart will be responsible.
It is time for Democrats to stand up to Trump. This is the time. This is their clearest opportunity.
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