Live updates: Graham Platner to skip Democratic Senate primary debates after Janet Mills drops out

Read Platner’s full statement on Mills suspending her campaign:

“Janet Mills has dedicated her career to this beautiful state. We are all eternally grateful for her service to Maine as Governor, Attorney General, district attorney, and in the legislature.

“We both got into this race because we knew how critical it is to defeat Susan Collins. And her decision today reflects a commitment to that project. I look forward to working with her between now and November to do just that. To defeat Susan Collins and turn this seat blue again.

“The race has never been about me or really about one person. It’s about a movement of working Mainers who are fed up with being robbed by billionaires and the politicians who own them. We are now taking back our power. That is what this campaign is.

“We will defeat Susan Collins. We will go to Washington, and we will start tearing down the system that for too long has forgotten and written off the people who make Maine and this country what it is.

“People have said that this campaign came out of nowhere. But those people don’t know Maine. This movement came out of a lot of somewheres.

“From working waterfronts that have worked for far too long only to be pushed to the brink.

“From towns where the closest hospital is hours away.

“For workers who pay more in taxes than billionaires.

“For loggers who are just one mill closure away from bankruptcy.

“And for young people who want a home to call their own.

“And for seniors ready to demand the dignity they deserve.

“For decades this has taken, piece by piece, store by store, hospital by hospital, shore by shore, town by town. They have taken from us.

“And they took so much that they began to think that we didn’t exist at all. But they don’t know Maine. They don’t know the power that we have here.

“And we are taking back what is ours.”