Maine Governor Janet Mills withdrew her campaign to represent the state in the U.S. Senate on Thursday.Mills was the establishment Democratic favorite to replace Senator Susan Collins, a Republican who has held the seat since 1997. But she severely lagged in the polls behind progressive candidate Graham Platner.In a statement released Thursday, Mills explained that her exit from the race boiled down to basic resources, specifying that she lacked the campaign funds to continue campaigning.“While I have the drive and passion, commitment and experience, and above all else—the fight—to continue on, I very simply do not have the one thing that political campaigns unfortunately require today: the financial resources,” Mills said. “That is why today I have made the incredibly difficult decision to suspend my campaign for the United States Senate.”Mills’s late entrance into the race last year hampered her fundraising abilities, and raised questions about her hunger to represent Maine in Washington. Within the first three months of 2026, Mills had raised just $2.7 million, a paltry sum for an establishment favorite expected to have the party’s wealth behind her. Mills’s fundraising efforts were eclipsed by Platner’s campaign, which raised $4.6 million in the same period.Her withdrawal is a stunning loss for the national Democratic Party, not only as a sign of her waning popularity within the state, but also for the waning popularity of the national establishment that endorsed her. For nearly two decades, New York Senator Chuck Schumer has selected the party’s Senate candidates with little opposition. That is no longer the case. Schumer’s political apparatus also faces contention in the midwest, where his preferred Senate candidates are facing tough primary competition in Iowa, Michigan, and Minnesota.The race to contest Maine’s Senate seat has also sparked a debate on age, challenging ideas about which generation of candidates should be representing the breadth of America. Platner, a Marine and Army veteran-turned-oyster farmer, is 41 years old. Mills, who has represented the Pine Tree State since the 1980s, is 78.This story has been updated.