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susan collins
Platner Raises 3 Times as Much as Mills, Collins Combined in Small Donations in Final Quarter of 2025
"Remember back when the national media said our campaign was dead?" said the Democratic Senate candidate.
Feb 02, 2026
At a campaign event over the weekend, Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner repeated a message that's been central to his campaign since it launched last August: that his goal of serving in the Senate is about "movement politics" more than attaining a position of power for himself.
“If we win this race, with this kind of politics and building this kind of organizational capacity,” Platner told the crowd that had packed into the AmVets hall in Yarmouth, Maine on Saturday, “then we get to point to this and show them it works. We get to inspire others in other states. We get to show them that you can win Senate seats with a working-class movement.”
On Monday, new fundraising numbers released by the progressive candidate's campaign on social media showed that Maine voters are responding to Platner's call to help build people-powered movement.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, the veteran and oyster farmer's campaign brought in $3.2 million from people who donated less than $200—about three times the amount collected by Platner's top competitor in the Democratic primary, Gov. Janet Mills, and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) combined.
Mills brought in $822,000 in the fourth quarter while the longtime Republican senator reported $230,000 in donations.
Teachers had the most common occupation among Platner's small-dollar donors, according to the campaign.
Platner released the fundraising data soon after announcing the "207 Tour"—a statewide tour currently scheduled to go until at least May with stops in the southern coastal town of York, Fort Kent on the Canadian border, and tiny inland towns like Liberty and Appleton.
Collins has not faced Mainers at a town hall in over two decades, Platner has noted.
"I don't know how we've reached a time when Mainers cannot count on politicians to show up in their communities and openly and honestly answer questions. Our campaign is doing things differently because I'd actually like to hear from you," said Platner last week. "Wherever you are, I'll see you there."
Beyond small-dollar fundraising, the Platner campaign is aiming to mobilize a grassroots army of volunteers across the state and that’s what the slate of town halls in dozens of communities is designed to help build.
The 207 Tour so far appears to offer more proof that Platner's campaign platform—which demands a Medicare for All system to replace for-profit health insurance, a repeal of Citizens United to "ban billionaires buying elections," and a billionaire minimum tax—is resonating with Maine voters.
He spoke to 500 people in Yarmouth, a town of 9,000 people. That same day, 100 people crowded into a venue in South Paris (population: 2,000), and 85 people joined him Sunday at a town hall in Isleboro, a town of fewer than 600 people which is accessible only by ferry.
In Liberty, Platner was greeted with a standing ovation on Sunday.
"Remember back when the national media said our campaign was dead?" he said on social media, referring to stories that broke just as Mills entered the Democratic primary race in October, pertaining to a tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol—which had never before raised alarm and which Platner subsequently had covered up—and old Reddit posts he had written that he said no longer reflected his worldview.
The controversies did not slow his momentum, with voters at his campaign events responding positively to Platner's candid comments about how his views have changed throughout his life.
Organizer and attorney Aaron Regunberg said Sunday that Democratic consultants and pundits who wrote off Platner last fall "shouldn’t be allowed to keep being so wrong all the time and still have jobs."
In overall fundraising in the last quarter of 2025, Platner outpaced both of his rivals, reporting $4.6 million in total donations. He has $3.7 million in cash on hand.
Mills reported $2.7 million for the period and has $1.3 million in available cash after the fourth quarter, and Collins raised $2.2 million and has $8 million in cash on hand.
A number of recent polls have also shown Platner favored to win in the primary and general election.
In recent weeks, Platner has taken Collins to task for supporting a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security even as President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign came to Maine and swept up numerous people who had not committed any crimes—and for taking credit when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were ending "enhanced" operations in the state.
In Yarmouth, Platner acknowledged he has built a reputation as a bit of a "bomb-throwing populist" with some of his campaign rhetoric—"and I am," he promised.
But he also said he does not want to go to Washington, DC just to "get in fights with people" with whom he disagrees—but to push for policies that his growing "movement" is demanding by working with anyone he can.
"When we're talking about policy that impacts people's lives and livelihoods," he said, "things don't happen just because you're holding grudge against somebody."
"The point is to go down there and pass things and build power," said Platner. "Sometimes it's not going to work, but that's also why we need to build that secondary power—the movement power—to impose [our power] at those times when relationships won't work."
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Platner Refuses to Accept 'Pinky Promise' on ICE From White House as Collins Claims Maine Surge Is Over
"When we do get ICE out of Maine, it's important for people to understand that that came from below, that came from power from organizers, from a mobilized population," said Senate candidate Graham Platner.
Jan 29, 2026
At a rally outside Sen. Susan Collins' office on Thursday morning, soon after the Republican lawmaker claimed she had gotten assurances from the Trump administration that it would end its immigration enforcement surge in Maine, Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner said he was not prepared to accept a "pinky promise" from the White House after the arrests of hundreds of Mainers in recent days.
"I don’t believe it,” Platner told a crowd of protesters. “I don’t take the word of an administration that continues to break the law. I don’t take the word of an administration that continues to stomp our constitutional rights. We need to see material change.”
Collins said in a statement Thursday morning that she had spoken with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and received information that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "has ended its enhanced activities in the state of Maine"—adding the caveat that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "does not confirm law enforcement operations."
"There are currently no ongoing or planned large-scale ICE operations here," said the senator. "ICE and Customs and Border Patrol will continue their normal operations that have been ongoing here for many years."
About 200 people have been detained in what ICE has called "Operation Catch of the Day" since it was launched earlier this month, and immigrant rights and mutual aid groups in Portland, Lewiston, and other cities have ramped up efforts to support the state's growing population of immigrants and asylum-seekers, including its Somali community, which includes many people who have become citizens since arriving in the US.
The administration said it had a list of more than 1,400 people in Maine it aimed to arrest—people it claimed were among the so-called "worst of the worst" violent criminals the White House wants to deport.
People abducted from their cars and homes in the state, however, include a corrections officer who was eligible to work in the US, a civil engineer on a work visa, a mother who was followed home by ICE agents and had a pending asylum application, and a father who was driving his wife and 1-month-old baby home from an appointment and whose car window was shattered by an agent, sending glass flying into the infant's car seat. None of those people had criminal records, according to background checks and attorneys.
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) said that while the "visible federal presence" in Maine may be reduced following Collins' announcement, "it is important that people understand what we saw during this operation: Individuals who are legally allowed to be in the United States, whether by lawful presence or an authorized period of stay, following the rules, and being detained anyway.”
“That is not limited to this one operation," said Pingree. "That has been the pattern of this administration’s immigration enforcement over the past year, and there is no indication that policy has changed.”
Platner told local ABC News affiliate WMTW that Collins affirmed in her statement that "she still supports ICE operations, just not this expanded one. An agency that over the past week has abducted people that work for the sheriff's department, has abducted fathers bringing their newborn child home from the hospital, an agency that has murdered American citizens in the streets of Minneapolis."
"That is not an agency that has any welcome in Maine to conduct any operations," said Platner, who has spoken out in support of abolishing ICE, which was established in 2003.
Sen. Susan Collins said ICE has ended its enhanced operation in Maine. But Graham Platner, who is running for Collins' Senate seat, told @catemccusker that he will believe it when he sees it. https://t.co/7GL6qM3Bf6 pic.twitter.com/iE6O44Ok5t
— WMTW TV (@WMTWTV) January 29, 2026
Platner also emphasized in comments to the Maine Newsroom that Collins, who as the Senate Appropriations Committee chair has been working to pass spending bills to avert a government shutdown and has been fighting against a push to strip DHS funding out of the package, should not get credit for pushing ICE out of Maine, if the agency is actually retreating.
"When we do get ICE out of Maine, it's important for people to understand that that came from below, that came from power from organizers, from a mobilized population," said Platner. "It is that power that is going to push ICE out of Maine, and those in power, who have done nothing, are not the ones who get to take credit. The people of Maine get to take credit."
The government spending bills passed last week in the House with seven Democrats—including Rep. Jared Golden of Maine—supporting the DHS funding. The Senate needs to pass the package by the end of Friday to avoid a shutdown.
Portland City Council member April Fournier said the timing of Collins' announcement seemed "very convenient" for the senator, who is running for a sixth term.
"I take this with a grain of salt," said Fournier. "There's a very important budget vote today that Susan Collins will be a part of and there's a lot of pressure on her given all of these immigration operations, what's happened in Maine, what's happened in Minneapolis, and all over. She has a lot of pressure to decrease funding for ICE, and she has really put her line in the sand that she's not willing to do that."
Fournier added that Collins is "vulnerable" as the midterms approach, "so if she's able to somehow say, 'We got ICE out of Maine,' and then try and paint herself as the hero, I think that her political analysis of the situation is that will win her back some favor."
The council member noted that just over seven years ago, the senator assured voters that US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh would not vote to overturn Roe v. Wade as she announced her vote to confirm him.
"I trust Susan Collins and her actions about as much as I trust thin ice in spring here in Maine," said Fournier.
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'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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