Maine brewery owner joins race to take on GOP Sen. Susan Collins
Dan Kleban bets that something is preparing in Maine, and he is not talking about the last pale beer of his business.
Kleban, a democrat who is co-founder of Maine Beer Co., says that the Mainers have lost confidence in the Republican senator. Susan Collins before his re -election race next year, so he jumps into the race to defeat her.
“The cost of living here is too high. People are in a hurry, and Susan Collins are not doing enough to help families here,” Kleban said in an interview on Tuesday before launching campaign on Wednesday. Kleban said Collins “went to Washington and that she stopped looking for Mainers”.
“People here are in trouble,” added Kleban later. “We are a bunch of hard workers here. We don’t ask for much. We do not ask for documents. All we ask is that we get a just shaking. ”
The race is at the heart of any path to a Democratic majority in the Senate next year, when the party must no longer spin four seats to take control of the room. And the growing primary can send wider signals to the state of the Democratic Party beyond Maine.
Collins is the only republican senator from a former state vice-president Kamala Harris won last year, making the best target of the Democrats.
Collins, who has not yet officially announced that she presents herself for a re -election, was difficult to beat. Elected for the first time in 1996, she favored personal relationships with voters and proved that she had a bipartite call. She won her fifth term in 2020 by 9 points when President Donald Trump lost Maine by the same margin. Last year, Trump lost Maine by 7 points.
Kleban and other Democrats think that Collins could be more vulnerable this year, even if she broke with Trump by opposing her tax reduction and the signature tax expenditure law, known as “large and magnificent bill”. Kleban noted that Collins voted to advance this legislation before ultimately opposing it and called its actions “typical policy within DC — politics whose people have enough”.
Democrats have already started to try to paint Collins as Washington. The majority at the front, the non -profit branch of the main Super PAC supporting the Democrats of the Senate, launched an advertising campaign of $ 700,000 against Collins on Tuesday, striking it on the trade in the actions of the congress.
But the Democrats will first have to face an increasing primary domain which now includes Kleban as well as the farmer of the Oysters Graham Platner, a veteran of the army and the navy; Jordan Wood, who was chief of staff of Katie Porter, D-Calif., When she was in the house; And David Costello, a former official of the American agency for international development and the government of the state of Maryland.
Democratic governor Janet Mills, who cannot present himself to re -election because of the limits of the term, also plans to run against Collins. She recently told local journalists that she would decide by mid-November.
Platner and Wood both promised to stay in the race if Mills jumps. Kleban refused to say if he would do the same, saying: “We will cross this bridge when we get there.”
Meanwhile, the Democratic primary is already heating up.
Senator Bernie Sanders, I-VT., Approved Platner over the weekend and appeared with him during one of his “Fight The Oligarchy” gatherings on Monday.
Asked about the involvement of Sanders, Kleban said that he did not know Platner and that he would remain focused on his own campaign.
A self-written “pragmatist”, Kleban plans to highlight his work as a small business owner. Pressed to quote someone in his party whom he considers a strong leader, he underlined the Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona.
Kleban said he sympathizes with the Mainers who find it difficult to reach both ends, noting that he and his brother launched Maine Beer Co. after being dismissed from his work during the great recession. With the slogan “Doing what is good”, which he pointed out in his campaign launch video, said Kleban, his business increased while also contributing funds to environmental groups, paying his employees a “decent salary” and covering their health insurance costs.
Kleban congratulated Collins in 2015 for his work on tax relief for small businesses, which he compared in the interview with a broken clock which has always been “correct twice a day”. He recognized that Collins had done good, but he accused him of having lost contact with the Mainers, highlighting his votes to confirm the judge of the Supreme Court Brett Kavanaugh in 2020 and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary for health and social services this year.
If Kleban prevails in his primary, he would present himself against Collins as a democrat in the midst of the record ratings for his party, but he sees a path to follow for the Democrats.
“What I am going to do is offer voters a vision of the future that inspires. How are we going to improve their lives and not bury ourselves in social issues? ” He said, saying that he planned to focus on improving access to affordable housing and quality health care.
“We must prove that we can be the party that improves people’s lives,” he said.
