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janet mills
Blame NY 'Progressive' Consultants and DC 'Moderate' Insiders If Susan Collins Wins
Because of Morris Katz and Chuck Schumer's failures, we're left with a broken Maine Democratic Party now scrambling to find a replacement for Graham Platner in less than two weeks.
Jul 10, 2026
The Maine Senate race may be the most consequential in the country. If Susan "Kavanaugh promised me he wouldn't overturn Roe v Wade" Collins is reelected to the Senate, it may guarantee a small Republican Senate majority that will approve young extremist right-wing Supreme Court Justices to replace Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas and control the law for the next 30-40 years.
But young "progressive" Democratic consultants like Morris Katz and old "moderate" Democratic politicians like Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY) may have collectively f**cked up the process.
Graham Platner was recruited to run with minimal vetting by Katz, a 20-something political consultant from Tribeca who produces brilliant campaign ads. Chuck Schumer used his political muscle to ensure that 78-year old Maine Gov. Janet Mills would be the other contender in the Democratic primary. After Platner took a commanding lead in the polls, Mills dropped out, virtually assuring that Platner would be the then-likely nominee.
Katz is a 26-year old (or maybe 28-year-old since he previously lied about his age)) who grew up in a Tribeca to family of writers and film producers. Katz produced a series of brilliant ads for Mandami that help propel him to the NY mayoralty. Katz had previously produced ads for Democrat John Fetterman's (Pa.) successful Senate campaign depicting Fetterman as a populist working class hero, although once in the Senate Fetterman turned Republican-lite.
But Chuck Schumer is even worse. His anointing of Janet Mills as the party-approved candidate was as disastrous as Katz's anointing of Platner as the working class progressive hero.
Last autumn Katz formed a Brooklyn-based political consulting firm, The Fight Agency. Based on Mandami's success, Katz seemed to have decided that he himself was the singularly best person in the entire country to "cast" progressives to successfully win office.
Katz focused much of his efforts on recruiting a progressive working class candidate who he believed could defeat Susan Collins in Maine. He was tipped off to Platner by some labor organizers and traveled to Maine to meet him. “Within a few minutes of talking to him, I was, like, ‘This guy owes it to the country to run for Senate'" Katz recalled of his first meeting with Platner.
Platner fit Katz's script for a rough working class guy with progressive politics, and he virtually immediately cast Platner as his leading man. Katz and his partners didn't bother to vet Platner, a process that takes several weeks and costs over $20,000. In three days, New York-based Northside Research was paid $6,250 to produce a brief, risk-assessment memo in lieu of a detailed research book—or the start of one—that can be hundreds of pages long. According to The Wall Street Journal, "The expedited research didn’t discover issues that would later hurt his campaign, including the full trove of Platner’s Reddit posts or sexually explicit texts Platner sent to other women while married."
Less than two weeks later, Platner released a brilliant populist launch video produced by Katz that went viral and catapulted Platner into prominence. He drew adoring crowds, and his polling showed him overwhelming Gov. Janet Mills in the primaries.
But while concerning revelations about Platner's personal life kept dripping out, Platner's consultants brushed them off arguing they were irrelevant compared with Platner's charisma and his populist politics. As Slate reported: "Each time a new and disturbing Platner story landed—the Reddit posts, the tattoo, the alleged physical abuse, the sexting, the rape allegation—Platner’s team responded with an almost Trumpian playbook. They disparaged the media, played it off as a targeted attack by a vengeful political establishment, and insinuated that each scandal only made Platner more authentically Maine."
I'm generally in agreement with the populist anti-oligarchy themes of Platner's campaign and those of his progressive consultants (and even sent him a contribution). But they were immature and deluded to not vet Platner and to cavalierly dismiss the charges against him. The unvetted revelations about Platner's abusive treatment of women eventually doomed Platner's campaign.
Adam Jentleson, the late Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's former chief of staff, characterizes Katz's view of the ideal progressive candidate as "a highly selective image of populism that is tailored to an Upper West Sider’s political sensibilities.”
Katz grew up in Tribeca. His father is a successful screenwriter, his mother is a successful children's book author, and his godfather was the late actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. After dropping out of college, he worked as a production assistant and wrote screenplays, before entering politics.
That's a good background for learning progressive politics but not necessarily one to designate yourself as the leading casting director for progressive candidates with a working class background. This failure was demonstrated by his casting of the unvetted Platner and of John Fetterman who turned into a corporate Democrat.
But Chuck Schumer is even worse. His anointing of Janet Mills as the party-approved candidate was as disastrous as Katz's anointing of Platner as the working class progressive hero.
Because of both of their failures, we're left with a broken Maine Democratic Party now scrambling to find a replacement for Platner in less than two weeks. Let's hope it doesn't lead to Collins being returned to the Senate and helping confirm right-wing Supreme Court justices who could shape the law for decades to come.
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Mills Suspends Flailing US Senate Bid, Clearing Platner's Path to Nomination
"Now let's unify to defeat Susan Collins," said one progressive.
Apr 30, 2026
Maine Gov. Janet Mills on Thursday officially suspended her campaign for the US Senate, clearing the path for progressive candidate Graham Platner to secure the Democratic nomination.
In a statement posted on social media, Mills claimed that she no longer had the financial resources to continue with the campaign, which multiple polls projected she was losing badly to the upstart Platner.
"I step back from campaigning with unending love, admiration, and hope for Maine people," wrote Mills, "a people whose hearts are filled with love and whose integrity and humility is surpassed only by their kindness, generosity, and compassion."
Shortly after Mills announced her decision, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) released a statement supporting Platner's candidacy.
“After years of allowing Trump’s abuses of power, Senator Collins has never been more vulnerable," they said, "and we will work with the presumptive Democratic nominee Graham Platner to defeat her."
Mills' decision to suspend her campaign came less than a week after she vetoed a bill passed by the Maine Legislature that would have imposed a statewide moratorium on building artificial intelligence data centers.
Mitch Jones, the managing director of litigation for Food & Water Watch, described Mills' veto of the data center moratorium as symbolic of her out-of-touch Senate campaign, saying "it is no wonder" that the Maine governor's "political career seems to be limping to a feeble conclusion."
While Mills' decision to end her Senate campaign was not entirely unexpected given how badly she trailed Platner in both opinion polls and fundraising, some observers nonetheless found it a stunning development given that she's a two-term Maine governor running against a populist oyster farmer who has never held political office.
"A sitting two-term governor recruited by the leader of the Senate Democrats just lost to a Bernie Sanders-endorsed guy who started the race with zero name ID," wrote Zeteo News reporter Prem Thakker.
Kevin Robillard, senior politics editor at HuffPost, said that Mills' campaign will go down as "one of the most stunning flops in recent political history."
"Suspending a Senate campaign because you ran out of cash is something that happens to gadfly state legislators," he observed, "not sitting governors running with the endorsement of party leaders."
Tommy Vietor, a former National Security Council staffer under President Barack Obama and cohost of Pod Save America, questioned Mills' claim that she was suspending her campaign due to lack of resources.
"Her problem was lack of support from Maine voters," Vietor wrote, "not money."
Faiz Shakir, a longtime adviser to US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), graciously welcomed Mills' concession.
"Tough to make these kinds of decisions, but kudos to her for making the right one," wrote Shakir. "Now let's unify to defeat Susan Collins."
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Maine Lawmakers Fail to Override Mills' Data Center Ban Veto That Won Applause From Trump-Aligned Group
"When a corporate-funded group like Americans for Prosperity is cheering a veto that benefits an energy- and water-intensive industry like data centers," said one advocate, "it raises serious flags for the public."
Apr 29, 2026
The Maine Legislature on Wednesday failed to override Democratic Gov. Janet Mills' veto of a bill that would have established an 18-month moratorium on the expansion of artificial intelligence data centers in the state.
The state House needed 101 votes, of two-thirds of the members' support, to override the veto. The vote on reversing the governor's decision was 72-65.
Environmental and local control advocates were among those expressing anger in recent days over Mills' veto of the trailblazing bill that would have made Maine the first state to impose such a moratorium—while a group with strong ties to President Donald Trump and the Republican Party applauded the move this week, claiming the Democratic governor, also running for US Senate this year, has stood up "for Maine’s economic future" by siding against the ban.
“Gov. Mills made the right decision to veto the data center moratorium," said Ross Connolly, Northeast region director for Americans for Prosperity, the right-wing political advocacy group affiliated with the billionaire Koch brothers, earlier this week.
"At a time when states across the country are competing for investment and innovation, this veto sends a strong signal that Maine is open for business and reinforces the state’s commitment to growth and innovation," said Connolly. "AFP looks forward to working with policymakers to advance solutions that keep Maine on a path toward long-term economic opportunity.”
The group previously denounced the Maine Legislature for passing the bill, which would have stopped state and local governments from approving data center projects with electrical loads of 20 megawatts or more until November 2027. The bill passed with bipartisan support, and its lead sponsor, state Rep. Melanie Sachs (D-48), told Puck that the protections in the legislation would allow the government to “get it right" in Maine by studying the impacts of large data centers before allowing industry-friendly expansions to continue.
President Donald Trump and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have pushed for state and local governments to welcome the "innovation" offered by artificial intelligence companies by allowing the construction of massive data centers.
But opposition lawmakers in Congress and state legislatures as well as numerous public advocacy groups have warned the expansion of the energy-sucking facilities is already pushing working families' electricity bills higher, straining resources by consuming up to 5 million gallons of water per day, and being used for an industry that's projected to replace nearly 100 million jobs in the next decade, according to an analysis put out by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
In numerous states—including Arizona, Wisconsin, and Michigan—communities have rallied to block the construction of data centers, citing many of those concerns.
Trump issued an executive order late last year aimed at blocking state governments from regulating the rapidly growing industry.
In Maine, Mills vetoed the legislation after lawmakers voted down an amendment that would have provided a carve-out for the town of Jay, where the local Select Board voted last month to approve a data center that would be housed in the former Androscoggin Mill site. The paper mill was closed in 2023 following a wood pulp digester explosion on the premises, resulting in the loss of about 230 jobs.
"People will say all kinds of things to get their project approved. And then rural communities are often left holding the bag... And the record is clear: Data centers are not producing jobs. They're taking jobs away from people."
Though local policymakers backed the plan to build an over 200-megawatt data center, Seth Berry of Our Power, a group that advocates for clean energy and local control over energy resources, emphasized that Republican lawmakers in Maine appeared intent on ensuring the desires of working people in Jay and other towns aren't represented.
An amendment that would have allowed the Jay project to go forward also would have permitted data centers in "any community where there was a referendum of all voters," Berry, executive director of the group and a former Democratic member of the state House, told Common Dreams. "That amendment was shot down 29-115, and the vast majority of those who voted against it also voted against any moratorium at all."
"So it leaves me wondering, do people really want local communities to have a say?" said Berry, who also served in the state legislature and was House majority leader as well as leading the Joint Standing Committee on Energy, Utilities and Technology for three terms. "I'm all for that. I don't think that's what data center developers want."
He added that plans for data centers have been developed "secretly" between companies and Mills' Department of Energy Resources, which officials "failed to disclose" at a public hearing on the moratorium.
"There was extraordinary dishonesty on the part of the administration," Berry told Common Dreams.
Jim Walsh, policy director for Food & Watch, which advocated for Maine's data center moratorium, cautioned that while many people in Jay and other towns where the facilities are being considered may see the expansion of data centers as a solution to job loss and economic struggles, the employment provided by the centers would mostly be "some level of short-term construction jobs that tend to be for people that aren't in the communities."
"The long-term job prospects are minimal," Walsh told Common Dreams, citing research. "While the impacts on our energy and water infrastructure and water supplies are significant, and we need to be working to move forward with investments in communities that will help to improve people's lives, not drive up costs and allow corporations to profit off of scarce water resources."
Berry suggested that working people in struggling towns where data centers are being proposed need only "look at the facts" to determine whether the "pretty promises made by data center developers are actually trustworthy."
"People will say all kinds of things to get their project approved," Berry told Common Dreams. "And then rural communities are often left holding the bag. And that's exactly the reason in many cases that these towns are in desperate situations, because they trusted people in the past who proved not trustworthy. We've seen paper mills purchased and then sold for scrap after promises of hundreds of jobs. And the record is clear: Data centers are not producing jobs. They're taking jobs away from people."
As Drop Site News reported Tuesday, job loss among Jay residents who worked in paper manufacturing wasn't just the result of the 2023 equipment explosion. Private equity firm Apollo Global Management ran the paper mill in Jay as well as one in Bucksport from 2006-20, during which time it bankrupted "them both, selling off their carcasses for scraps, and eliminating more than 1,000 jobs" in the two towns.
Drop Site noted that the billionaire founder and CEO of Apollo, Marc Rowan, has contributed $50,000 so far to a super political action committee backing Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a strong AI supporter. The super PAC, Pine Tree Results, recently began running attack ads against Mills' progressive opponent in the Democratic primary, political newcomer and combat veteran Graham Platner, who supported the moratorium.
Platner told NBC News after Mills announced her veto that his "biggest problem with data centers and AI" is not the technology itself, but with who benefits and who is harmed by the manner in which it is rolled out.
"In every moment in human history where a new, transformative technology arises that increases productivity, when it’s left in the hands of corporate power, it is always used to disenfranchise people," Platner warned. "It is always used to, frankly, impact workers negatively.”
Along with the project proposed for Jay, a Minnesota-based company called LiquidCool Solutions has been proposed in Limestone, with the center expected to use up to 26 megawatts of power—the equivalent amount of energy used by more than 20,000 Maine households.
Texas-based multiFUELS has also proposed an integrated energy center including a data center in Sanford in southern Maine. A lawyer representing the company, Anthony Buxton, told Maine Morning Star last week that the project would be in the 100-200 megawatt range.
"A moratorium would be a pretty clear signal they weren’t welcome here,” said Buxton, who, according to Federal Election Commission records, donated just over $2,000 to Mills' Senate campaign late last year.
Walsh told Common Dreams that "when a corporate-funded group like Americans for Prosperity is cheering a veto that benefits an energy- and water-intensive industry like data centers, and that decision comes after financial support from interests tied to a proposed project, it raises serious flags for the public."
Berry was unsurprised that the Trump-aligned group supported Mills' veto.
"Sadly, corporate multinationals tend to call the shots in the Mills administration," Berry told Common Dreams. "This is why she vetoed multiple pro-labor bills, tribal sovereignty, and [publicly owned utility] Pine Tree Power, among other key bills. And all of these vetoes have been sustained by support not from her own party, but from legislative Republicans."
Berry expressed hope that following the Legislature's failure to override Mills' veto, communities across Maine will take action, as other towns have across the country, to ensure they have a say in whether data centers operate there. He also said he hopes voters back candidates for office who who supported the moratorium.
"My expectation is that the conversation will turn to local action and also to the election," said Berry. "It is a big election year. We will choose the next governor. We'll choose the next US senator... And I expect that energy affordability in general, and data centers, as well will be very front of mind."
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