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{"id":25828,"date":"2026-07-14T18:47:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T18:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/maine-democrats-will-square-off-in-senate-debate-thursday\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T18:47:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T18:47:20","slug":"maine-democrats-will-square-off-in-senate-debate-thursday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/maine-democrats-will-square-off-in-senate-debate-thursday\/","title":{"rendered":"Maine Democrats will square off in Senate debate Thursday"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Democrats vying to replace former Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner on the ballot are set to battle on the debate stage Thursday night.<\/p>\n<p>News Center Maine confirmed the debate, which will be held at 7 p.m. EDT in Portland and include three former gubernatorial hopefuls \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2026\/07\/08\/congress\/troy-jackson-graham-platner-00991360\" target=\"_blank\">Troy Jackson<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2026\/07\/09\/congress\/shenna-bellows-maine-senate-race-00992267\" target=\"_blank\">Shenna Bellows<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2026\/07\/09\/congress\/another-maine-candidate-00991525\" target=\"_blank\">Nirav Shah<\/a> \u2014 as well as former 2nd District candidate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2026\/07\/09\/congress\/jordan-wood-maine-senate-bid-00991537\" target=\"_blank\">Jordan Wood<\/a>. The local news organization told Blue Light News it invited candidates who received at least 20 percent of the vote in their respective primaries in June.<\/p>\n<p>All four candidates confirmed their participation in statements to Blue Light News.<\/p>\n<p>Platner\u2019s decision to drop out of the race last week \u2014 following <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/07\/06\/graham-platner-sexual-assault-allegation-00987737\" target=\"_blank\">POLITICO\u2019s report<\/a> of a new sexual assault allegation \u2014 set off a scramble among Maine Democrats to find a nominee to take on GOP Sen. Susan Collins.<\/p>\n<p>Thursday marks the first public face-off for these candidates, who\u2019ve <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/07\/10\/graham-platner-replacement-scramble-00992699\" target=\"_blank\">been jockeying to win over<\/a> Platner\u2019s base of support ahead of the July 25 nominating convention, when more than 600 delegates will choose Platner\u2019s replacement. The race is a must-win for Democrats if they hope to take over control of the Senate in November.<\/p>\n<p>One notable candidate didn\u2019t get an invitation: Dan Kleban, who ran for Senate but dropped out to back Gov. Janet Mills over Platner in the primary.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for News Center Maine said they did not invite him because Kleban did not meet the vote threshold. Kleban did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Jackson, in a statement Tuesday, urged the center <a href=\"https:\/\/mailchi.mp\/ffa835fefb59\/urgent-troy-jackson-nomination-next-steps-11465973?e=1b9cd98b53\" target=\"_blank\">to include other candidates<\/a> who\u2019ve declared they\u2019re seeking the nomination or are listed on the Maine Democratic Party\u2019s current voter guide, \u201cto restore voters\u2019 trust in this process being open, transparent, and fair.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The debate will run for 90 minutes and be televised statewide on stations WCSH 6 and WLBZ 2.<\/p>\n<p><i>Andrew Howard and Jessica Piper contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Democrats vying to replace former Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner on the ballot are set to battle on the debate stage Thursday night. News Center Maine confirmed the debate, which will be held at 7 p.m. EDT in Portland and include three former gubernatorial hopefuls \u2014 Troy Jackson, Shenna Bellows and Nirav Shah \u2014 as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25828\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}