A new omnibus poll from Pan Atlantic Research, a Portland-based research company headed by former Maine Democratic Party chair Victoria Murphy, offered a snapshot of key 2026 races that showed the establishment Democrat candidate for the U.S. Senate enjoying a double digit lead over the renegade upstart.
Two key primary races on the ballot next summer will be for the governorship, as well as for one of Maine’s two seats in the United States Senate.
Gov. Janet Mills (D) currently appears to hold a sizable ten-point lead over Graham Platner in the upcoming Democratic primary race for one Maine’s two seats in the United States Senate.
This differs significantly from an October Pine Tree State Poll — a States of Opinion Project, conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center — wherein Platner was shown to be a clear front runner at the time with 58 percent support, compared to 24 percent for Gov. Mills.
With a sample size of 820, the latest Pan Atlantic Research poll reports having a margin of sampling error of 3.7 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.
[RELATED: Platner Shows Substantial Lead Over Mills Despite Mounting Controversies]
In the Pan Atlantic poll, 14 percent of likely Democratic primary voters are still undecided about their choice, while one percent named David Costello as their preferred candidate.
Support for Mills and Platner varied widely, however, based on age and gender, with women primarily backing Mills and men mostly expressing an interest in Platner.
In terms of age, Mills holds a runaway lead among those 55 and older, while Platner holds a roughly equivalent lead among those 18-34 years of age. Platner also leads by 20 points among those 35-54 years old.
When going head to head against incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), however, both Mills and Platner carry 43 percent of the vote, effectively tying with the sitting senator, as roughly 15 percent of likely voters remain undecided at this time.
As far as the upcoming gubernatorial primary is concerned, Angus King III currently appears to hold the lead with 62 percent expressing some level of interest in voting for him.
This section of the survey did not pit candidates directly against one another, but rather gauged respondents’ interest in and willingness to consider voting for each person individually.
Former President of the Maine State Senate Troy Jackson is currently the least favored candidate among Democrats as just 30 percent of likely primary voters said that they had some level of interest in backing him. This may due in large part, however, to the whopping 54 percent of respondents who said they were unfamiliar with him.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows is pulling support from 48 percent of the likely Democratic primary voters surveyed, while Nirav Shah is support by 54 percent and Hannah Pingree has 56 percent.
At 29 percent, Pingree had the largest share of prospective voters clearly indicate that they would not be willing to vote for her, followed by King with 24 percent decided opposition.
Leads shift, however, if only those who said that they would “likely” support a given candidate are considered. Looking at this data alone, Shah holds a five-point advantage at 24 percent, while King, Pingree, and Bellows fell into the middle of the pack. Jackson remains the least popular at 8 percent.
For the Republican gubernatorial primary, nearly half or more of respondents were unfamiliar with each of the potential candidates.
At 40 percent, Bobby Charles holds the most sizable lead among likely Republican primary voters at the moment, followed closely by Jonathan Bush.
State Senator James Libby pulled 34 percent, and Owen McCarthy was found to have 32 percent.
Coming in last was David Jones, with 30 percent of likely Republican primary voters indicating a willingness to vote for him.
Considering only the share of voters who expressly said that they would “likely” support, Charles continues to hold the lead position, but Jones moves up to second place with 6 percent, followed closely by Bush and Libby at 5 percent and 3 percent respectively. McCarthy takes last place in this line up at 2 percent.
None of the five candidates has a particularly outsized share of respondents expressing clear opposition to them, ranging from 8 percent to 14 percent.
Curiously, the Democrat-friendly poll did not include Republican candidate Ben Midgley, an entrepreneur from York County seen by some as a potentially strong candidate for the general election. Whether this was an oversight or intentional slight by the pollsters is unclear, but Midgley’s campaign has pointed to it being a signal of the survey’s unreliability with respect to the Republican gubernatorial field.
Click Here to Read the Full Results of the Poll
Pan Atlantic Research confirmed to the Maine Wire Thursday that the only gubernatorial candidates included in the survey used for this poll were the five Democrats and five Republicans shown in the official graphs.
Despite a more expansive field on both sides of the political aisle, only a handful of candidates from each party were presented to respondents, a choice that Pan Atlantic Research explained was made due to concerns over participant fatigue.
The group indicated that they expect to cast a broader net in their next round of polling.
Seamus Othot contributed to this report.
This article was updated on December 11, 2025 to include clarification from Pan Atlantic Research and other additional information.
