Restless Democrats challenge party establishment while trying to loosen
Trump's grip on Washington
[May 02, 2026]
By STEVE PEOPLES
NEW YORK (AP) — Maine just sent a blunt message to the Democratic
Party's national leaders.
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills was forced to abandon her U.S. Senate
campaign on Thursday, unable to generate sufficient fundraising or
enthusiasm to compete against Graham Platner, an oyster farmer who has
never served in elected office. The announcement marked a stinging
defeat for Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who recruited Mills
to lead the party's decades-long quest to defeat Republican Sen. Susan
Collins.
The swift defenestration of a two-term governor by a political neophyte
highlighted a stark reality that has begun to take hold at a pivotal
moment — Democratic voters are rejecting their party’s establishment and
embracing new risks, even as their confidence grows that a blue wave is
coming in November's midterm elections.
Sometimes Democrats seem almost as angry at their own party's aging and
entrenched leadership as they are at President Donald Trump.
“Rank-and-file Democrats don’t want the Democratic Party as we know it,”
said Ezra Levin, co-founder of the Democratic resistance group
Indivisible. “Rank-and-file Democrats want fighters.”
Local Indivisible chapters, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who's an
independent but caucuses with Democrats, and other leaders from the
party's progressive wing had already lined up behind Platner, who is now
almost certain to be the Democratic nominee in one of the party’s best
Senate pickup opportunities in the nation.
Platner on Friday insisted he would continue to speak out against his
party's leadership, including Schumer, although he acknowledged that the
two spoke privately the night before.
“The fact that we’ve been able to do all of this without the help of the
establishment, it puts us in such an amazing position,” Platner said on
MS NOW's “Morning Joe.” “My criticisms of the party leadership, my
criticisms of the party, they have not changed, and I’ve been very vocal
about that since the beginning. But we will absolutely take the help
that we can get.”
Republicans, meanwhile, are giddy — and some moderate Democratic
strategists are worried — that the anti-establishment shift may
undermine the party’s effort to claw back control of Congress in
November.
“Chuck Schumer has officially lost the first battle in his proxy war
with Bernie Sanders,” said Bernadette Breslin, spokesperson for the
Senate Republicans' campaign arm. “As Sanders hits the campaign trail to
prop up progressives in messy Democrat primaries in Michigan and
Minnesota, Schumer’s chances of getting his preferred candidates through
look grim.”
The backlash is bigger than Maine
Maine is far from alone.
Prominent anti-establishment clashes are playing out in high-profile
Senate races across Michigan, Minnesota and Iowa, along with House races
in several states.
Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, continues to promote
Platner and other critics of the Democratic Party's national leadership.
The Vermont senator will campaign this weekend in Detroit with Michigan
Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who is running in a three-way Senate
primary against Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow.
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Michigan State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak, a candidate for
the U.S. Senate, listens to questions from the media during the
Michigan Democratic Party State Endorsement Convention, Sunday,
April 19, 2026, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Jose Juarez)
“There’s a desire to turn the page on the old guard,” Sanders'
political adviser Faiz Shakir said. “It’s not even just the
Democratic electorate. There’s a populist mood in this country.
You’d have to be blind not to see it.”
Indeed, McMorrow is actively working to remind voters that she would
not support Schumer as Democrats’ Senate leader if given the chance.
“Frankly, I was the first person in this country to say no,”
McMorrow said in a video she posted Thursday on social media. “It is
a different moment. This is no longer a Republican Party we’re
dealing with, it is a MAGA party that has been taken over by Trump
loyalists. ... You need to respond in a very different way.”
Veteran Democratic strategists like Lis Smith, who works with
candidates across the country, tied the anti-establishment shift to
the party's painful losses in 2024, when President Joe Biden was
forced to abandon his reelection bid and Vice President Kamala
Harris went on to lose to Trump.
“After 2024, voters are sick of the gerontocracy, sick of the status
quo, and Chuck Schumer has completely misread that,” Smith said.
Moderates push back
Privately, Schumer's allies downplay the impact of the
anti-establishment backlash.
The Senate Democratic leader's preferred picks in North Carolina,
Ohio and Alaska haven't faced the same challenges as Mills did in
Maine. The four states represent the party's most likely path to a
majority in the chamber, which has 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and
two independents who caucus with the Democrats.
Mills is the oldest of the candidates and, at 78, would have been
the oldest freshman senator in history. She promised to serve one
term if elected. Platner is only 41.
Schumer's team is unwilling to make any apologies for backing Mills
over Platner.
“Leader Schumer’s North Star is taking back the Senate," Schumer
spokesperson Allison Biasotti said. "When no one thought a Senate
majority was possible just a year ago, he made it a reality by
recruiting great candidates across the country and laying out an
agenda for lower costs and better lives for Americans.”
Some in the Democratic Party’s moderate wing are worried.
Matt Bennett, co-founder of the center-left group Third Way, said
that Platner’s emergence in Maine “without a doubt” will make it
harder for Democrats to defeat Collins in November. He warns that it
could be the same elsewhere if Democratic primary voters rally
behind anti-establishment candidates.
“Our message is if you would like to beat Donald Trump’s
Republicans, you better nominate people who can win,” Bennett said.
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