Maine Democrats are scrambling to find a new Senate candidate after their original pick, Graham Platner, withdrew from the race. State law gives them until July 27 to name someone for the November ballot.

Platner stepped aside after a rape allegation surfaced against him. He officially withdrew by sending a letter to Maine's Secretary of State's office on July 10. He denies the allegation.

Democrats in the state had been pushing Platner to drop out for days before he finally quit the race.

How the Replacement Works

Maine Democrats voted on July 8 to hold a nominating convention — basically a party meeting where members vote on who gets to be the official nominee. They released the rules on July 9 explaining who can run and how the vote will work.

The party has less than three weeks to do this whole process. That's much faster than a normal primary election, which means there's not much time to vet candidates the usual way.

Who's Running

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows announced she wants the job one day after Platner withdrew. Bellows runs Maine's elections, so she's now both running for the Senate seat and overseeing the process of certifying which candidate gets on the ballot. That's raised some eyebrows.

Bellows has a head start because she's already well-known and has campaign staff and donor lists from her current job. But it's not clear yet if other Democrats will jump in before the deadline.

Susan Collins, the Republican senator Maine is trying to defeat, is running for reelection no matter what happens on the Democratic side. Her campaign hasn't been disrupted by the drama with Platner, and national Republicans don't seem worried about losing the seat.

Why This Matters Beyond Maine

It's rare for a political party to swap out a damaged nominee this close to an election. How Maine pulls this off could matter for other states with competitive Senate races. If Democrats execute this smoothly, it shows other parties how to recover from a late-breaking candidate crisis.