Chuck Schumer wasn’t prepared for this day to come.
All of Schumer’s best-laid plans were going up in flames.
And Chuck Schumer got some bad news that ran him over like a freight train.
Schumer led the effort to recruit Maine Governor Janet Mills into the Senate race to challenge Republican incumbent Susan Collins.
There is no path for Democrats to flip the four seats they need to reclaim the majority without beating Collins.
The media cheered Schumer convincing Mills to run for Senate as a masterstroke.
But it immediately became clear that Schumer misread the room.
Democrats saw the 78-year-old Mills as an extension of the out-of-touch gerontocracy that Joe Biden represented, and that cost Democrats the House, the Senate, and the Presidency in 2024.
Polls showed Mills trailing 41-year-old socialist Graham Platner by nearly 40 points in the Democratic primary.
Mills could see the wiring on the wall and dropped out of the race weeks before the primary, citing a lack of money.
“While I have the drive and passion, commitment and experience, and above all else – the fight – to continue, I very simply do not have the one thing that political campaigns unfortunately require today: the financial resources. That is why today I have made the incredibly difficult decision to suspend my campaign for the United States Senate,’ a statement from Mills announcing the end of her candidacy read.
Chuck Schumer and fellow New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand, who doubles as the chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, put aside their past attacks savaging Platner as unelectable, to unite the establishment behind his candidacy in the hopes of ousting Collins.
“After years of allowing Trump’s abuses of power, Senator Collins has never been more vulnerable, and we will work with the presumptive Democratic nominee Graham Platner to defeat her,” a joint statement from Gillibrand and Schumer read.
The writing was on the wall that Mills was out of money when she stopped spending money on TV ads in the previous two weeks.
“Mills’ own campaign has spent less than $10,000 on ads since April 12, according to data from AdImpact, effectively going dark on air for more than two weeks at a time in the campaign when most allies concede she needs to start staging a comeback.
Platner has spent about $1 million in the same time period. Ads from his campaign running this week largely focus on Collins instead of Mills,” Notus reported.
A memo from the Platner campaign correctly predicted the end was near for Mills.
“If this spending is any indication, the general election has effectively begun,” the memo said. “Graham Platner is clearly the front-runner in the primary and strongest candidate to take on Senator Susan Collins, and national Republicans are responding accordingly,” the Platner campaign memo exclaimed.
Republicans didn’t wait one second to begin pummeling Platner with his past controversial comments about being a communist.
Chuck Schumer just coronated Graham Platner as the Democrat nominee in Maine.
— Senate Republicans (@NRSC) April 30, 2026
Meet Graham Platner.
pic.twitter.com/OTcpBeHgPe
Great American Digest will keep you up to date on any new developments in this ongoing story and other breaking news in politics. Please bookmark our site, make it your homepage, and share our content with your friends on social media and by email.
