U.S. Senate
Maine Democrats
Browse candidates for U.S. Senate:
David Costello | U.S. Senate
David Costello’s lived experiences are rooted in many of the same challenges countless Mainers face everyday. David was born in Bangor and raised in Old Town by his mother Gail and mill-working grandparents Alfred and Pauline Baillargeon. David’s father John, an Army veteran and labor organizer, passed away at the age of thirty-one, due to hazardous working conditions he faced as a teenager.
David knows what it’s like to have to hustle to pay bills, compile years of debt, and go long periods without health insurance and health care.
His education and work experiences equip him with the kind of knowledge and perspective desperately needed in Washington today. Like many in Maine, David began working at an early age and worked his way through school at the University of Maine, George Washington University, and the London School of Economics.
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David has more than twenty-five years of senior-level government experience, both in the United States and abroad. As a top aide to Maine’s Secretary of State, the Mayor of Baltimore, and Governor of Maryland. As a Deputy and Acting Secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment. And as a county program manager and regional team leader for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID-OTI). Implementing and managing, not simply legislating or talking about, complex multi-million-dollar programs and operations.
Programs and operations that resulted in election and motor vehicle safety reforms in Maine; improved schools and family assistance programs in Baltimore; the implementation of ambitious job creation, education, health care, and environmental protection programs in Maryland; and the completion of more than 3,000 peace and community building projects in conflict-torn Cambodia, Haiti, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, and Serbia.
The contrast between Senator Susan Collins’ and David’s backgrounds and experience couldn’t be starker.
Janet Mills | U.S. Senate
Janet Mills is Maine through and through. She fights for us because she’s one of us. And Janet doesn’t just fight, she wins for Maine – protecting our health care when politicians try to rip it away, taking on the drug companies fueling the opioid crisis, and defending our state from Donald Trump’s attacks.
Now she’s running for the U.S. Senate to fix what’s broken in Washington, lower costs for everyone, and stand up to anyone who tries to hurt Maine people.
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The granddaughter of potato farmers from Aroostook County and the daughter of a World War II veteran and a public school teacher, Janet learned the value of hard work early in life. Growing up, she delivered newspapers in the morning and served meals at the local diner in the evening.
While serving as a prosecutor, she met and married the love of her life, her late husband, Stan Kuklinski, a widower with five young daughters. Janet and Stan moved back to Farmington, and she became a full-time mom to five daughters while working full-time herself.
Janet Mills always stands up for Maine. No one loves this state or believes in its people more than she does. That’s why she has always fought for Maine people, and that’s why she’s running for U.S. Senate — to keep standing up for Maine.
Graham Platner | U.S. Senate
Born in Blue Hill and raised in Ellsworth & Sullivan, Graham is a lifelong Mainer. He is a Marine, Army veteran, oyster farmer, and Chair of the Sullivan Planning Board.
Whether enlisting in the Marine Corps, working in his community, or running for Senate to get money out of politics, the core of every decision Graham made is: how can he best serve Maine?
After graduating high school during the height of the Iraq War, Graham snuck into his father’s office to retrieve his birth certificate, so he could enlist in the Marine Corps.
After completing training, Graham was assigned to Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines. He deployed to Al-Anbar Province, Iraq, where he served primarily in the area east of Fallujah. In 2006, he deployed to Ramadi as a machine gun section leader at the Government Center. He deployed again in 2007.
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After his third deployment, Graham enrolled at GW University using the GI Bill, but realized his time serving wasn’t over. In 2009, he joined the Maryland Army National Guard and later deployed to Afghanistan as a rifle team leader.
He returned from Afghanistan and went back to school in 2011. Like many veterans, Graham struggled with undiagnosed PTSD and physical challenges from combat. He withdrew and moved back home, where he used VA resources to get the help he needed.
After four tours overseas, Graham was disillusioned with America’s failed foreign policy and endless wars and focused on serving his community. He began working on a small oyster farm, eventually taking it over, and started a diving and mooring service, and serving Sullivan as Harbormaster and Planning Board Chair.
He met Amy Gertner in 2023 and got married soon after. They live three doors down from where Graham grew up with their two dogs, Gryffin and Zevon, and their cat, Neptune.