PORTLAND, Maine — A Maine television station has reversed its original decision and will now allow eight Democratic candidates to take the stage in Thursday’s U.S. Senate debate, after campaigns objected to rules that would have excluded half the field.
Candidate Dan Kleban, co-founder of Maine Beer Company, announced the change on social media late Tuesday. “News Center Maine reached out to my team to let us know that all announced candidates will now be invited to participate in Thursday’s debate,” he wrote. “I have accepted the invitation and am looking forward to having an exchange of ideas with the other candidates.”
The expanded invitation is a win for Troy Jackson, the former Maine Senate president who had publicly demanded that News Center Maine open the debate to every declared candidate. Jackson’s campaign said the station had originally set a threshold requiring candidates to have earned at least 20% of the vote in last month’s primary races.
Nine Democrats are competing to replace Graham Platner as the party’s nominee to challenge Republican Senator Susan Collins this November. Only four candidates cleared that original 20% bar: Jackson, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Nirav Shah, and ex-congressional aide Jordan Wood.
Collins is the only Republican Senate incumbent running for reelection in a state that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris carried in 2024. With Republicans holding a 53-47 Senate majority, flipping Maine is seen as a key part of Democrats’ strategy to reclaim control of the chamber.
Social worker Paige Loud and former longtime political aide David Costello both fell below the 20% threshold in their respective primary races. Meanwhile, Kleban, former state Representative Elizabeth Dickerson, and Ashley Webb — a transgender and intersex woman — were not on the ballot at all last month.
News Center Maine announced it would include all candidates who had filed to run by the close of business Tuesday, a cutoff that will leave Webb off the stage.
Kleban had previously argued against the original criteria, saying, “The fact that some candidates in this race weren’t running for completely different offices last month shouldn’t prevent us from taking the debate stage.”
Loud’s campaign initially told reporters that any candidate who had filed their paperwork deserved an invitation. She later credited “conversations with the station and pressure” from the various campaigns with broadening participation.
Scramble Follows Platner’s Exit
As Platner was weighing whether to suspend his campaign last week, potential replacement candidates called for an open and fair selection process. His campaign collapsed after sexual assault allegations emerged — allegations he denies — prompting the Maine Democratic Party to begin the process of choosing a new nominee.
The party has announced that a nominating convention will be held July 25 in Bangor.
“I’m ready to take the stage Thursday and make my case to Mainers,” Jackson said in a statement Tuesday. “Every other candidate who has registered for the party’s nominating process should have the same opportunity to make their case to delegates and voters.”
Candidates have until 5 p.m. Wednesday to file their intent to seek the nomination and must gather 500 signatures by Monday, with at least 50 coming from each of eight counties. At the convention, delegates will vote in multiple rounds until one candidate secures a majority. The top five vote-getters will advance to a second round, with the lowest-finishing candidate eliminated in each subsequent round.
