Nettie Nelson, 76, had seen the ads for Graham Platner, the 41-year-old Democrat running for Senate in Maine. She was intrigued by Mr. Platner’s focus on the needs of working people, but unsure about his “gruff” demeanor.
So Ms. Nelson, who lives in rural Clinton, Maine, drove to a coffee shop in nearby Skowhegan with her husband, Bob, on a recent Saturday to hear Mr. Platner in person.
With Maine’s Democratic primary a little more than two months away, Ms. Nelson is carefully weighing her choices. Older women like her are among the most reliable primary voters in the country, and they will almost certainly play a key role in choosing which Democratic challenger will take on Senator Susan Collins, the Republican who has held the seat for three decades, in November.
But the high-stakes showdown between Mr. Platner, an oyster farmer and Iraq War veteran with a populist message, and Gov. Janet Mills, 78, a seasoned moderate from a political family, is playing out amid a nationwide generational rebellion in the Democratic Party. The Platner-Mills battle is among the highest-profile examples of the shift, which has chased household names like Nancy Pelosi and Richard Durbin from Congress, put incumbents such as Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts on their toes and signaled to the party’s field of 2028 presidential aspirants that young voters will demand a voice.
The irony in Maine, the state with the oldest population in the country, may be that many older voters are drawn to the party’s youth movement, too.
“It’s hard to say it, but I don’t really want to vote for someone as old as Janet Mills,” said Lucy Leaf, 80, a Democratic voter from Ellsworth, Maine. “I just think we need a fresh look on everything.”
In more than two dozen interviews across Maine last week, many older women said they had voted for Ms. Mills in the past, and appreciated her handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and her tough stance against President Trump. Some also spoke admiringly of the barriers she broke as the first woman to serve as Maine’s governor and, before that, attorney general.
Yet for many women in their 60s and beyond — a group that could be seen as likely supporters of Ms. Mills — the choice is not yet clear. While they respect the governor and her achievements, many said that her age was a factor in their deliberations, along with their growing conviction that new leadership, energy and ideas are essential for meeting what they view as a moment of crisis in the country.
“She has a lot of experience,” Ms. Nelson said of Ms. Mills, looking pensive as she settled into an armchair at Mr. Platner’s event in Skowhegan. “Is that good?”
Dozens of people, including many with gray hair, had come to hear Mr. Platner speak. Ms. Nelson sipped from a can of 7-Up and listened closely as the candidate described politics as “a performance of the elite” that has become “inaccessible to the American people.”
By the time Mr. Platner was 16 minutes into his stump speech, talking about blue-collar workers who can’t afford to send their children to college, a tenfold increase in the number of billionaires and a “fight against fascism” that demands regular people take back power, Ms. Nelson had risen to her feet, a faint smile on her lips.
Raised in a family that goes back to the 1700s in the region, she was the only one of six siblings to go to college. Money was one reason. She worked for 29 years in hospital payroll and benefits; when a merger threatened her job, she found work in local schools for another 20 years.
“I agree with everything he said,” Ms. Nelson said after Mr. Platner finished. “Whether he can get it done is another story.”
Ms. Mills will need older voters, particularly women, to make up for Mr. Platner’s lead among younger people and men. A poll last month by the University of New Hampshire found Mr. Platner leading by 57 percentage points among men, and by 24 points among women. Ms. Mills had a narrow advantage over Mr. Platner among voters 65 and older, where she led 49 to 45 percent.
One of the highest-profile older women backing Mr. Platner hails from a neighboring state, Massachusetts. Senator Elizabeth Warren, 76, endorsed him on March 19.
The battle for women’s votes intensified last week, after Gov. Mills’ campaign released an ad attacking Mr. Platner for comments he made on Reddit more than a decade ago saying women should “take responsibility” and “act like an adult” to avoid being sexually assaulted. After her campaign rallied women leaders from around the state to condemn him, Mr. Platner quickly assembled his own lineup of women to speak in his defense, arguing that he has taken responsibility for his past and grown as a person.
Women interviewed last week said the ad had not swayed them. “I admired that he owned up and said, ‘Yes, I did that, and I’m not the same person that I was,’” said Cokie Giles, 70, a Platner supporter and retired nurse from Brewer.
Gov. Mills, appearing via Zoom at a Democratic forum in Ellsworth last week, defended the ad, saying voters deserve to know which candidate will be most vulnerable to the “merciless” attacks that Republicans will mount against the eventual Democratic nominee.
“This is about electability, plain and simple,” Ms. Mills said. “I don’t have any Reddit posts to hide.”
Rob Glover, an associate professor of political science at the University of Maine, said women will play key roles in the primary, both as voters and as campaign volunteers. If they prove to be turned off by Mr. Platner’s past, it could hit his operation hard.
“When you look at the campaigns and who’s doing the work, it’s overwhelmingly women,” he said. “They’re the ones who show up and get people elected.”
Several women interviewed said they were less concerned about Mr. Platner’s past and more focused on his lack of political experience.
At a protest last week in Bangor, outside the federal building that houses Senator Collins’s office, Nancy Jacobson, 67, an undecided voter, said she liked Mr. Platner’s ideas but wished he were running for the House of Representatives, which has two-year terms, so voters could “give him a trial run.”
“I think he’s outgrown his past, but he has some dirt, and I would like to see him gain experience before we hand him six years in the Senate,” she said.
Another undecided voter on the sidewalk, Joan Richert of Brewer, said she had one goal: to figure out which Democrat could beat Senator Collins, who is 73.
Ms. Richert, 78, said she had written to Ms. Mills in recent months to thank her for standing up to Mr. Trump.
“She’s really shown a backbone,” Ms. Richert said. “I told her, ‘I like what you’re doing. I loved ‘See you in court.’ But I’m 78 and so are you — I wish you were younger.’”
Ms. Mills’s long tenure may hurt her with some voters, but in a state where she is widely known as “Janet,” familiarity can also be an asset. Julia Re, 43, of Waterville, said she is not supporting Mr. Platner because she knows nothing about him. She will vote for Ms. Mills instead.
Some women said they had been turned off by certain positions the governor has taken during her two terms. A half dozen said they objected to her veto in 2023 of a bill that would have helped Maine tribes access federal benefits. Several who work as nurses said they believed Ms. Mills had undermined their unsuccessful fight two years ago to set statewide nurse-to-patient ratios.
Ms. Mills also opposed efforts to pass a “red flag” law after a mass shooting in Lewiston in 2023. Voters ultimately approved the law, which allows families to petition a judge to remove guns from relatives with mental health issues, in a statewide referendum last fall.
But most women interviewed who supported Mr. Platner said it was his message that had swayed them most — especially his impassioned calls for universal health care and his focus on the needs of working people.
The latter theme struck a chord with Lisa Sabatine, 67, of Georgetown a school psychologist whose two young adult children “are unable to think seriously about buying a home,” she said, “even though they work and their partners work.”
It also resonated for Ms. Nelson, the undecided voter at Mr. Platner’s event in Skowhegan, who said this week she was nearly certain that she would vote for him.
“The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer,” she said. “Our children are not doing as well as we did.”
Sydney Cromwell contributed reporting from Waterville, Maine.
Jenna Russell is the lead reporter covering New England for The Times. She is based near Boston.
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