Candidates are desperately trying to appeal to Graham Platner’s base. But they’re keeping Platner himself at arm’s length.

In the running are at least six candidates, three of whom who lost in Maine’s Democratic gubernatorial primary in June. Former state Sen. Troy Jackson, whose gubernatorial campaign was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was the first to enter the race. Next came Dr. Nirav Shah, who previously directed the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows.

Like Shah, Jackson and Bellows are now doing their best to prove to Platner’s base that they will carry out his policy vision.

Asked if he would echo Platner’s call to abolish ICE outright, Shah said the agency is “out of control” and “cannot continue to exist” in its current form. “Whether we reform ICE, whether we disband it and start from scratch, or whether we transfer their duties to CBP, ICE, as it currently is constituted, cannot continue to exist,” he said.

While Platner was a vocal critic of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Jackson faced criticism for not mentioning Israel or Gaza in his Senate launch on Wednesday. But a day later, he issued a statement denouncing the genocide in Gaza as “unconscionable” and saying he would “never vote in favor of US taxpayer-funded military aid to Israel.”