WHEN FORMER NORTH CAROLINA GOV. ROY COOPER ended months of suspense by launching a Senate campaign, there were complaints from some quarters: Why did he have to talk about prayer in his launch video? And he’s 68? Really? What happened to the Democrats’ belated acknowledgment, after three deaths in office this year, that too many of their leaders are too old?
All I could think of was Nancy Pelosi’s mantra, borrowed from former Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, when she was House speaker: “Just win, baby.” The context there was telling her own members it was fine to criticize her on the campaign trail if that upped their odds of victory.
As for Cooper, he clearly has a solid understanding of himself, his state and the importance of a big tent. And what better Democrat of any age to run in North Carolina at this moment, after President Donald Trump signed a law that will end health-insurance coverage for millions in 2027 or sooner, than a former governor who expanded Medicaid to over 600,000 lower-income people, many of them workers struggling to afford health care? A former governor who, as Trump and his party shred multiple laws and the Constitution each day, is also a former state attorney general?
Sometimes age is a problem, but sometimes it’s the only way to win.
A recent summary of Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer’s recruitment efforts did give me pause, though. One of his targets, former three-term Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, is now preparing to run next year in a special election to succeed Vice President JD Vance, Axios reports.
Brown is 72. Not that there’s anything wrong with that—if there’s a chance he can win a tough state. And there is. He was only 3 points behind Sen. Jon Husted, the former lieutenant governor appointed to the job in January, in an April poll of a hypothetical race. Stark signs of economic deterioration since then, along with plummeting Trump approval on immigration policy and in general, suggest a Brown comeback is not out of the question.
Schumer is also courting second-term Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a former prosecutor who proved plenty feisty at a meeting with Trump in February when he threatened to withhold federal education money over her state’s LGBTQ law. But she’s 77, and if she won a six-year term, she’d be 79 by the time her Senate tenure began in January 2027.
A bridge too far? I’d have to say yes. As a baby boomer myself, I can understand why ambitious younger people awaiting political opportunities—even into their fifties!—are impatient to advance. And I can also see the advantage of a younger, energetic Democrat to take on fifth-term Sen. Susan Collins, 72.
In North Carolina and Ohio, Cooper and Brown are known quantities and, whether tacitly or explicitly, they would signal a reassuring return to reality-based norms—economic, scientific, legal, constitutional—after a chaotic and frightening interlude.
In Maine, Collins is the known quantity, tethered to Trump and Republicans, and she’s become notably unpopular and vulnerable. In a University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll of Maine residents in April, only 21 percent said she deserves to be re-elected to a sixth term. In June, the same poll found that 60 percent in Maine disapproved of Trump’s handling of the economy (up from 53 percent in April).
Could Collins finally feel a backlash? For all her constant “concerns,” she is a solid member of Team GOP and responsible as much as anyone for the mess we’re in.
She voted to confirm all of Trump’s top nominees except Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and FBI Director Kash Patel—even and most egregiously Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary who will never run out of ways to endanger America’s health, and Tulsi Gabbard, the national intelligence director concocting Obama administration “treason” falsehoods based on “nothingburger” conspiracy theories. The Justice Department is investigating. Because of course it is, that’s the point.
In short, there are more than enough lines of attack against Collins—a recidivist enabler and apologist for the sins of her president and party—to make her defeat at long last seem plausible, not naïve. That is, if she runs for re-election.
The deadline to file as a candidate in Maine is March 15, 2026. Collins has said she plans to run, but she hasn’t made it official. Mills says she has not yet made a decision. If she gets to yes, an explicit one-term-only pledge could seal the deal for some voters.
In contrast to the race to succeed Mills as governor, which features several relatively high-profile contenders, marquee state names are missing from the Senate primary as Mills mulls her future. The top fundraiser so far is 35-year-old Jordan Wood—a Maine native who was chief of staff to former Rep. Katie Porter of California.
One name I haven’t seen mentioned: Former state Rep. Raegan LaRochelle, who lost a 2024 state Senate race by 199 votes and was Mills’s choice in January to lead the Maine Democratic Party. She did not get that job, but the glowing, even over-the-top endorsement she received from Mills creates an opening for her to chase after whatever job she wants in politics—including U.S. Senate if Mills doesn’t run.
How old is LaRochelle? She graduated from college in 2000. You do the math.