\n<\/p>\n
The Maine Democratic Party unveiled its plan to replace Graham Platner, the Senate nominee who withdrew from his race after a woman accused him of sexual assault. The replacement process is scheduled to happen at a remarkably fast pace \u2014 within just three weeks of Mr. Platner\u2019s withdrawal.<\/p>\n
If all goes to plan, the eventual Democratic nominee will have just under 100 days to campaign against Senator Susan Collins, the Republican incumbent, in what is expected to be one of the most competitive Senate races of the midterms.<\/p>\n
Replacing a Senate candidate is rare, and procedures vary by state and by timing. Here is how the Maine Democratic Party plans to pick Mr. Platner\u2019s replacement.<\/p>\n
Twelve Democrats have declared themselves candidates. Nine who had submitted their intent to run by Tuesday were invited to a debate hosted by News Center Maine on Thursday.<\/p>\n
At the debate, the candidates tried to embrace Mr. Platner\u2019s grass-roots energy while not condoning his behavior, and they assailed Ms. Collins for siding with President Trump on various issues. They also spent much of the debate denouncing the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Maine, in light of the fatal shooting in Biddeford on Monday.<\/p>\n
Each of Maine\u2019s 16 counties will host a meeting this weekend, either in person or virtually, to select a total of 500 delegates to attend the state convention on July 25. The delegates will not be pledged to a particular candidate, but many delegate candidates have made their preferences known.<\/p>\n
Thousands of Mainers have registered as a candidate to be one of the delegates or as a participant in these meetings.<\/p>\n
Each county will select an allotted number of delegates based on the number of Democratic votes in the 2024 presidential election in that county. Cumberland County, which includes Portland, the most populous city in Maine, will elect the most delegates.<\/p>\n
The Maine Democratic Party will send another 101 delegates from its state committee.<\/p>\n
Senate candidates must gather at least 500 signatures. They need to have at least 50 signatures from at least eight different counties.<\/p>\n
Two days before the state convention, CNN and The Bangor Daily News will host a two-hour debate. There will be a live audience that will include some county delegates.<\/p>\n
Delegates will gather at the convention in Bangor to vote for the nominee to replace Mr. Platner.<\/p>\n
Voting will happen in rounds until one candidate reaches a majority. Here\u2019s how that voting process could work.<\/p>\n
The Maine Democratic Party must submit the nominee\u2019s name to Shenna Bellows, Maine\u2019s secretary of state, by July 27. Ms. Bellows is also one of the candidates to replace Mr. Platner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Maine Democratic Party unveiled its plan to replace Graham Platner, the Senate nominee who withdrew from his race after a woman accused him of sexual assault. The replacement process is scheduled to happen at a remarkably fast pace \u2014 within just three weeks of Mr. Platner\u2019s withdrawal. If all goes to plan, the eventual<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[581,3711,25023,7808,11262,3541],"class_list":{"0":"post-51239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-democrats","9":"tag-graham","10":"tag-intend","11":"tag-maine","12":"tag-platner","13":"tag-replace"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}