The Two Types of Democratic Senate Candidates

Old Guys and Tough Guys.

On paper, Susan Collins should probably be the most vulnerable member of the Senate heading into the 2026 elections.

She’s the last of a dying breed: the only Republican left in Congress from New England, and the only statewide elected Republican in Maine. Collins is also the only Senate Republican up for re-election in a state Kamala Harris won last year — and Harris didn’t just win Maine, she did so comfortably, by about seven points.

By comparison, the two seats Democrats are defending in states Donald Trump won last year both featured much tighter races in 2024: Michigan, which Trump won by 1.4 percentage points, and Georgia, which he won by 2.2. Those are bona fide swing states. Maine’s really not.

And yet, Democrats have been struggling to recruit a major candidate to run against Collins. Rep. Jared Golden would seem like an obvious choice: in his 40s, moderate, ex-Marine, with experience winning over Republicans and Independents (Trump won his district by 10 points last year). But Golden worked for Collins early in his career and has expressed no interest in running against his ex-boss. Gov. Janet Mills is another possible candidate; she also appears quite hesitant, though she may still throw her hat into the ring.

The caution can probably be attributed to a case of Collins-induced PTSD. Maine Democrats well remember 2020 — the last time Collins was up for re-election — when the party poured $75 million into Sara Gideon’s campaign against the senator. The final polling average showed Gideon up by 5.5 points. Collins ended up winning by 8.6.

Nevertheless, Democrats celebrated the arrival Tuesday of a new candidate in the race against Collins: Graham Platner, an oyster farmer who served four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He is the second notable Democrat to launch a Senate campaign this week, following Sherrod Brown, the former Ohio senator who announced on Monday that he would try to return to Washington, challenging Republican Jon Husted, who was appointed to fill the seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance.

Brown and Platner cut two very different profiles: Platner has never run for office. (He is his town’s harbormaster, but it’s an appointed office. I checked.) Brown has held elected office for 50 years. Platner, 40, would be the third-youngest sitting senator if elected. Brown, 70, cannot say the same.

If either of these descriptions sound familiar, it’s because they each fit into the two main archetypes of Democratic Senate candidates this cycle. I call them “Old Guys” and “Tough Guys.” Allow me to explain:

Old Guys

Age is part of being an “Old Guy,” but it isn’t everything. The status is really about résumé. Take Sherrod Brown, for instance. He served as an Ohio state representative (in the ’70s and ’80s), as Ohio secretary of state (in the ’80s and ’90s), as a congressman (in the ’90s and aughts), and a senator (from 2007 until this year).

While Democrats have had plenty of conversations about gerontocracy since Joe Biden passed the torch, they didn’t beg Brown to run for Senate in search of a fresh face. Instead, they wanted someone with an electoral track record: a candidate who comes with built-in name ID and long experience running tough campaigns.

They’ve tried the same strategy in North Carolina, where former Gov. Roy Cooper is the party’s presumptive nominee for the seat being vacated by Republican Thom Tillis. Cooper, like Brown, has been around the block — 14 years in the state legislature, 16 years as state attorney general, eight years as governor. He’s also no next-generation candidate, at 68.

Old Guys can be women, too! Janet Mills, who continues to mull a Senate bid against Collins, entered government back in 1976. At 77 years old, she would become the oldest newly elected senator in history, as the Washington Post’s Paul Kane has noted.

Democrats have thrown their lot in with Old Guys before, to mixed results. In 2016, the party’s roster of Senate nominees included former senator Russ Feingold in Wisconsin, former governor Ted Strickland in Ohio, and former senator Evan Byah in Indiana, betting that their statewide experience would fuel victories. All three lost. Ditto Phil Bredesen, the former Tennessee governor who lost his Senate bid in 2018 despite notching Taylor Swift’s first-ever political endorsement, and ex-governor Steve Bullock, who ran for Senate in Montana in 2020.

(Ex-governors Maggie Hassan and John Hickenlooper, now the senators from New Hampshire and Colorado, serve as counter-examples.)

When they run, Old Guys are usually seen as the party’s best choice — but really only when they have no other choices, when it isn’t obvious anyone else can win a seat (as is the case with Brown and Cooper). Old Guys are often selected for their track record winning elections, but it’s not uncommon for their last campaign to have ended in a loss, as was the case with Feingold, Strickland, and now Brown. (Bloomberg’s Greg Giroux notes that, despite several attempts, no defeated ex-senator has successfully won a return to the chamber in almost 40 years, since Washington state Republican Slade Gorton in 1988.)

Old Guys often aren’t the best choice so much as they’re the last choice.

Tough Guys

While Old Guys are the comfortable choice — a known quantity to voters and party leaders alike — Tough Guys are usually more orthodox candidates. They generally have never run for political office. They don’t have an electoral record, but they have a compelling backstory.

The aforementioned Graham Platner, an Army and Marine veteran, oyster farmer, and competitive pistol shooter is a good example. So is Dan Osborn, who is technically running for Senate in Nebraska as an Independent — but, c’mon, the chair of the state Democratic Party has endorsed him. Osborn is an industrial mechanic who gained national attention when he led a 77-day strike at his plant.

Their announcement videos often share a certain style: same type of music, heavy on personal biography, lots of talk about corrupt politicians, entrenched interests, and shaking up the status quo. (Both Osborn and Platner mention “billionaires” in their videos.)

In Iowa, Democrats have two Tough Guy candidates to choose from: Nathan Sage, a mechanic and ex-Marine, and Josh Turek, a Paralympic gold medalist. In Michigan, Aduel El-Sayed — a podcasting former public health official who posts workout videos (classic Tough Guy behavior) — is trying to claim the mantle.

This is a newer archetype for Democrats, so there aren’t as many previous examples to point to. Despite being Pennsylvania’s sitting lieutenant governor when he ran for Senate, John Fetterman probably qualifies. Astronaut-turned-Arizona senator Mark Kelly fits in this category too. In fact, fellow astronaut Terry Virts in Texas is trying to replicate his success this cycle.

True to Tough Guy form, Virts narrates his launch video wearing an astronaut uniform, just as Platner can be seen in his harvesting oysters, Osborn fixing a car, and Turek scoring baskets from his wheelchair.

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Of course, there are Democrats running for Senate this year who don’t fit into either category. There are Rising Stars, more typical next-generation politicians who are working their way up the ladder, like Michigan’s Haley Stevens, Minnesota’s Angie Craig and Peggy Flanagan, and Texas’ Colin Allred. (Allred played in the NFL, but he also served six years in the U.S. House and was the Democratic darling who ran against Ted Cruz last year. You can be a tough and not a Tough Guy, which also requires some amount of distance from the party establishment.)

And don’t forget the Video Stars: Democrats who are seeking Senate success off the backs of viral videos, like Mallory McMorrow in Michigan (remember her from viral speech on LGBT rights in 2022?) or James Talarico in Texas (perhaps you heard him on Joe Rogan?)

Old Guy/Tough Guy also isn’t a perfect dichotomy. Old Guys are usually moderate, while Tough Guys are more populist — but Brown, a stereotypical Old Guy, also has populist roots. Tough Guys are usually first-time candidates, but Osborn and El-Sayed have both lost previous races (it’s giving Old Guy!), though neither has held elected office.

It can sometimes seem like Tough Guys come out of nowhere, but that often isn’t true either. It was hard to miss the fact that Platner came out of the gate with buzzy interviews in the New York Times … and Politico … and NBC … and ABC … and seemingly every other news outlet on the planet.

That might seem odd for an oyster farmer with (seemingly) no national political connections … until you realize that Platner has lined up several top Democrats consultants who have experience shepherding unorthodox candidates to victory, including Morris Katz (from Zohran Mamdani’s campaign) and Joe Calvello (from Fetterman’s).

Where do you think those highly produced announcement videos come from?