One of the most expensive races in this year’s midterm elections is starting to take shape.
Graham Platner, the likely Democratic nominee for the Senate in Maine, is gunning for Senator Susan Collins’s seat in a race that is seen as pivotal to control of the chamber.
Mr. Platner, whose campaign has been roiled by various scandals, has out-raised Ms. Collins. His main campaign committee raised $16.2 million between January 2025 and late May of this year, according to federal election filings. The Collins campaign brought in $11.8 million over the same period.
But Ms. Collins, who has been in office for nearly 30 years, has more help from outside groups supporting her with advertising. She has been the beneficiary of more than $19 million so far from the conservative dark-money group One Nation and nearly $7 million more from another dark-money group, according to data as of Monday afternoon from the media tracking firm AdImpact.
Mr. Platner has also received support from dark-money groups buying advertising, with nearly $6 million in anti-Collins ads from Majority Forward, the nonprofit arm of Senate Majority PAC, the main super PAC backing Democratic Senate candidates. Two other groups, Unrig Our Economy and Duty and Honor, have also each spent more than $2 million on ads attacking Collins.
And it’s just getting started.
In an early indicator of how competitive the general election in Maine could be, both parties have already bought tens of millions of dollars of future advertising spots — and Republicans have an early advantage.
The Senate Leadership Fund, the leading super PAC for Senate Republicans — which is affiliated with One Nation — has locked in nearly $29 million worth of ads to be aired in the fall. Ms. Collins also enjoys support from an independent pro-Collins super PAC, Pine Tree Results, that is set to spend another $20 million after Tuesday’s election.
On the Democratic side, WinSenate, a group aligned with Democratic leadership, has reserved more than $26 million for the general election.
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