The scramble to replace Graham Platner: eight Democrats, and the networks behind them

The vacancy

Maine Democrats have until **5 p.m. on July 27** to choose a new U.S. Senate nominee. Graham Platner — who had won the June primary and led the field — suspended his campaign in July 2026 after a sexual-misconduct allegation, which he denied. That reopened the nomination to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins in one of the cycle's most-watched seats, and set off a scramble. At least eight Democrats are running or weighing it. Most committees are days old, so the clearest read on where each candidate stands is not a bank balance — it's the **network** behind them. Here is what the public record shows so far.

The field

• Shenna Bellows — Maine Secretary of State; the party's 2014 nominee against Collins.
• Troy Jackson — former Maine Senate President; the Bernie Sanders lane.
• Jordan Wood — ex-chief of staff to Rep. Katie Porter; a campaign-finance reformer with the deepest war chest.
• Nirav Shah — former U.S. CDC deputy director; the credential candidate.
• Dan Kleban — Maine Beer Company co-founder; largely self-funded.
• Valli Geiger — state representative and nurse; Platner's preferred heir.
• Paige Loud — social worker and former Platner staffer.
• David Costello — the 2024 nominee, back for another try.

The Sanders lane: Troy Jackson

The most networked progressive in the field is Troy Jackson, the logger who ran the Maine Senate for six years. He entered the 2026 cycle as a candidate for governor with the endorsement of Bernie Sanders, and though he lost that primary, the infrastructure came with him: Our Revolution, the group that grew out of Sanders's 2016 campaign, is now backing his Senate bid, and Rep. Ro Khanna endorsed him within days of Platner's exit. A longtime union member, Jackson is aligned with the Maine AFL-CIO and runs, pointedly, as a small-donor, anti–dark-money candidate.

The reform lane — and the money behind it: Jordan Wood

Jordan Wood is the field's money-in-politics specialist, and, ironically, the one with the deepest documented donor network. He was chief of staff to former Rep. Katie Porter, served as a vice president at End Citizens United — where he ran its "No Corporate PAC" pledge — and co-founded democracyFIRST, an anti–election-denial group. His campaign committee raised about $5.7 million (he lent it $400,000), and the FEC record shows who filled it: max-out checks from Pritzker-family billionaire Jennifer Pritzker and from Tiffany Muller, the president of his old shop End Citizens United; a $5,000 check from Truth to Power PAC, Porter's leadership PAC; and $10,000 and $5,000 from the reform PACs Progressive Turnout Project and Defend the Vote. The backbone of his donor base is the Democratic digital-fundraising firm Mothership Strategies — co-founded by his husband, Jake Lipsett — whose partners are among his largest individual donors. A No-Corporate-PAC candidate, in other words, funded by a dense web of reform-world PACs and consultants.

The credential candidate — and the money fight around him: Nirav Shah

Nirav Shah, who ran the Maine CDC through the pandemic and then served as principal deputy director of the U.S. CDC, is the field's marquee résumé — and the one candidate around whom outside money has already stirred. In the gubernatorial primary, the science-candidate PAC 314 Action endorsed him and spent roughly $650,000 on an independent ad campaign. Under Maine's disclosure law, the top funders of that pro-Shah ad were 314 Action, a "major Democratic backer" named Ashish Patel, and the school-choice group Education Reform Now Advocacy — the last of which became a flashpoint: rivals Troy Jackson and Shenna Bellows publicly denounced the group as an "anti–public school organization." The state's largest teachers' union, the Maine Education Association, ranked Shah third in its gubernatorial endorsement.

The self-funders: Kleban and Costello

Dan Kleban, co-founder of Maine Beer Company, has largely bankrolled his own run — FEC filings show about $215,000 in self-funding alongside $244,000 raised, no PAC money — and relaunched with Maine Senate President Mattie Daughtry and conservationist Lucas St. Clair as campaign co-chairs. His first attempt, in 2025, ended when he dropped out and endorsed Gov. Janet Mills. David Costello, the 2024 nominee, is also self-funded — about $110,000 in candidate loans — with one notable outside donor on the record: Pritzker-family billionaire Jennifer Pritzker, who is, tellingly, the single national donor whose money touches two candidates in this field, having also maxed out to Jordan Wood.

The returning challenger: Shenna Bellows and the ghosts of 2014

Shenna Bellows, now Maine's Secretary of State, has run this exact race before — she was the 2014 Democratic nominee against Collins. That campaign drew a wall of national progressive money and institutional backing: EMILY's List, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America, MoveOn, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee all endorsed her. She lost by 37 points. Whether that 2014 network re-forms around her in 2026 is one of the open questions of the scramble.

The Platner heirs: Geiger and Loud

Two candidates are running most explicitly as continuations of the campaign that collapsed. Valli Geiger, a state representative and nurse from Rockland, says Graham Platner personally called and encouraged her to put her name forward — though his campaign said no formal endorsement had been decided. Paige Loud, a 29-year-old social worker, actually worked as a policy strategist on Platner's Senate campaign before launching her own bid to carry his platform forward.

What the money map shows

Two things stand out. First, the deepest documented network belongs not to the establishment but to the reformer: Jordan Wood's $5.7 million operation, fed by a lattice of reform PACs, his old End Citizens United boss, his former principal's leadership PAC, and his husband's fundraising firm. Second, for all the money in play, exactly one national individual donor — Jennifer Pritzker — surfaces on more than one candidate's ledger. And the pro-Israel networks that have driven other 2026 Senate primaries are, so far, absent from the public record here: neither AIPAC's PAC nor J Street has weighed in on the Maine replacement fight. In a race decided by a small convention on a two-week clock, the network that matters most may be the one that moves first.