Dan Kleban, a business owner who is running to challenge Republican Senator Susan Collins in Maine’s U.S. Senate race, told Newsweek that President Donald Trump’s tariffs are “paralyzing” small business owners in the state.
Why It Matters
Maine’s Senate race is expected to be among the most competitive elections of the 2026 midterms.
Collins, long viewed as one of the most moderate Republicans in the Senate, has represented the state for decades and has won in tough environments before, despite the state’s consistently blue tint.
However, Democrats are optimistic about their chances next year, as polls suggest the president remains unpopular in the Pine Tree State, which backed former Vice President Kamala Harris by about seven points in last November’s election. Kleban is among those Democrats vying for the party’s nomination.
What To Know
Kleban told Newsweek that affordability and the cost of living are among his top concerns. The issue is one he knows well, he said, as he lost his job during the Great Recession, just after he and his wife purchased their first home.
“I was angry. I played by the rules. I worked hard and I felt like I was getting shafted, as were a lot of folks—hard-working Mainers and folks across this country,” he said.
But he said he turned that “anger into action,” and founded the Maine Beer Company with his brother, he said. They began work on the business in his garage on the weekends, but it eventually grew to the point where he now employees hundreds of people in Maine.
Sixteen years later, Kleban believes that the “system is rigged against hardworking Mainers.”
“The cost of housing is out of control. The cost of education is out control. Access to quality health care is out of control. Our rural health care system up here in Maine is being decimated, and Senator Collins doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it. She’s playing Washington, D.C. politics, and people are rightfully angry,” he said.
President Donald Trump’s tariffs are one of the issues driving up prices for Mainers, he said, adding that the tariffs also made life harder for small business owners like himself.
“How do I know if I can hire more people? Or how do know when I can buy that extra fermenter to make more beer if I don’t know what the cost of the inputs are going to be? It’s paralyzing folks. People have to understand that we just came out of COVID. We thought we were coming out of it and business was kind of getting back to normal and then boom, these tariffs come on and inject this needless uncertainty into business,” he said.
In the Senate, Kleban said he would push to get rid of the tariffs.
On health care, which remains a major issue for voters across the country—and especially in Maine, where some hospitals have already been facing troubling financial headwinds—Kleban said he would push to undo cuts in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
He noted that Maine has already lost up to 10 or 11 birthing centers over the past decade.
“If you live in Houlton now and you need medical care for you or your child, you have drive an hour north to Presque Isle or two hours south to Bangor,” Kleban said. “Heaven forbid it’s an emergency. So, I think we need to reinvest in our health care system.”
His own family has been affected by the state’s health care crisis, he said. His mother owned a nursing home in Lubec, a town of about 300 people on the Canadian border that had to shut down “because reimbursement rates couldn’t keep the lights on,” he said.
Reinstating Affordable Care Act (ACA) credits must be a “dealbreaker” for Democrats as they decide whether to support a Republican budget bill and avoid a government shutdown. If Republicans come to the table as “an honest broker,” Democrats should work to avoid the potential shutdown, Kleban said.
“A government shutdown at the end of the day doesn’t benefit anybody except President Trump. As a small business owner, a government shutdown is going to hurt me. If you’re a veteran and you depend on VA benefits, it’s going to hurt veterans. It’s going to hurt seniors,” he said.
Kleban’s background in business has prepared him to tackle these issues, he said.
Kleban and his brother founded the company with the motto “Do What’s Right,” and has strived to give his employees a living wage, cover their health insurance premiums and donate one percent of his revenue to nonprofits, he said.
He said it’s critical that others with ideas for small businesses be able to do so, but that the affordability crisis has made that difficult for Americans.
“If you have a talent or you have an idea to start a small business, you can’t even pursue that dream because you’re worried about putting a roof over your head and food on the table,” he said. “It’s just not right, and it doesn’t have to be this way.”
Democrats need to show voters that the “American dream isn’t dead,” Kleban said.
“It’s on life support. But I think what we have to show people is that we can deliver results for Mainers, and Susan Collins just isn’t up to the job anymore,” he said.
Kleban Calls for Toned-Down Rhetoric Following Political Violence
The U.S. needs to get back to a place where all Americans can “disagree with one another” in a peaceful manner following a spike in political violence, such as the assassinations of Democratic Minnesota legislator Melissa Hortman and conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Kleban said.
That work starts in D.C., he said.
“It really does start at the top with just taking down the temperature and having folks that are going to D.C. to actually make people’s lives better and not just engage in performative politics to put out sound bites, to get clickbait on social media, to profit off of incendiary rhetoric just to draw more attention to themselves,” he said.
Americans are “at a breaking point,” Kleban said, adding that people are “sick and tired of all the rancor and all the division.”
“They just want adults down in D.C. working on policy to lower the cost of living, to make sure that folks can afford a home, a quality education, have access to health care,” he said.
The 2026 Election Will Be Different for Susan Collins, Kleban Says
Collins has previously won in Democratic-leaning environments. In 2008, when former President Barack Obama carried the state by 17 points, Collins won reelection by 23 points. In 2020, when Maine backed former President Joe Biden by nine points, Collins won with 51 percent of the vote.
But the 2026 midterms will be different, Kleban said, noting that “a lot has changed in the last six years,” and that many believe the second Trump administration is “even worse” than they expected.
“He came into office promising to lower the cost of living. It continues to escalate because of things like tariffs and this Republican budget bill. People are just sick and tired of things, and I think they’ve reached a breaking point. They look at me as a breath of fresh air, frankly, someone that can deliver results,” Kleban said.
The election will be different, in part, he said, because he believes Collins has “stopped standing up for Mainers,” pointing to her vote for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was among the conservative justices who in 2022 voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that for decades guaranteed the rights to abortion nationwide. Abortion remains legal in Maine, but many other states have added new restrictions on the procedure in recent years.
“She’s always willing to cast a vote when it doesn’t matter anymore. People are hurting. They are sick and tired of it. They’re ready for a new generation of leadership. They’re ready for folks who aren’t career politicians,” Kleban said.
What Happens Next
Kleban is facing several other Democrats, including Graham Platner and Jordan Wood, in the primary election. Governor Janet Mills is also considered a potential candidate, although she has not announced whether she plans to enter the race.
Independent polling remains limited in Maine, but political analysts view it as likely to become competitive and expensive as Democrats hope to reclaim a Senate majority.
Full Interview With Dan Kleban
The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Why did you decide to run for Senate?
The cost of living is just too damn high up here, and Senator Collins isn’t doing enough to bring relief to hard-working Mainers. Look, 16 years ago, in the wake of the Great Recession, I lost my job. I had to go home and tell my wife while we were kind of drowning in student loan debt, had just scraped together some pennies to buy our first starter home that I was unemployed. We lost a source of income. And I was angry. I played by the rules. I worked hard and I felt like I was getting shafted, as were a lot of folks—hard-working Mainers and folks across this country. But I turned that anger into action. I decided, look, I’m going to try to prove, me and my brother did, that we can start a company that’s a force for good in this world. So we started Main Beer Company with the simple motto of “Do what’s right.” And to us, that meant that we were going to pay our employees a living wage. We were going to give them health insurance and cover 100 percent of their health insurance premiums. We were going to provide for their retirement. We were going to share our profits. And we also realized early on that a healthy planet is good for business. And so we put our money where our mouth is. From day one, we’ve donated 1 percent of our top-line revenue to environmentally focused nonprofits, and we’ve been successful.
I look down at D.C. now, and I have that same feeling I felt 16 years ago, where the system is rigged against hardworking Mainers. They feel like they can’t get ahead. The cost of housing is out of control. The cost education is out control. Access to quality health care is out of control. Our rural healthcare system up here in Maine is being decimated, and Senator Collins doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it. She’s playing Washington, D.C. politics, and people are rightfully angry. We need folks down there like me who know what it’s like to start a small business to go into D.C. and clean things up and actually deliver for Mainers. I know what it’s like to struggle in my 20s. I didn’t have health insurance for much of my 20s. I remember driving to work and pulling into a gas station on fumes and only being able to put in a gallon or two at a time. I remember going home and not having much food in my pantry and grabbing a loaf of bread and some Tabasco sauce and calling that dinner.
Those memories are firmly imprinted in my brain. I know what it’s hard to struggle and how hard it is for folks out there. But the flip side of that is I also firmly believe that Maine is the best state in this country and that America is still the best country in the world. And we as Democrats, I think, it’s our job to show that the American dream isn’t dead. It’s on life support. But I think what we have to show people is that we can deliver results for Mainers, and Susan Collins just isn’t up to the job anymore.
The topic of affordability seems to be on the minds of Mainers.
I’ll go to my tasting room after work—I’ll go and grab a beer and I’ll sit across the bar from folks and just listen to what’s on their mind and in that you hear it over and over. It’s the cost of living. People just don’t feel like they can get ahead. If you have a talent or you have an idea to start a small business, you can’t even pursue that dream because you’re worried about putting a roof over your head and food on the table. It’s just not right, and it doesn’t have to be this way.
One of the issues you mentioned is the rural health care system here in Maine. Of course, we’ve seen some of our hospitals kind of have some financial struggles lately. What would your approach to this be as senator? And how would you work to ensure that all Mainers can have access to health care?
First what we have to do is undo the draconian cuts that the Republican budget bill imposed. Tens of thousands of Mainers are going to be without health insurance, period. And there’s a cost to that. That cost is going to borne by all of us who do have health insurance because those people are still going to go to the hospital. Just because they don’t have health insurance, they’re still going get medical care. Thankfully, we live in a country that will still provide the medical care, but those costs are just going to be absorbed by all the other rate payers. First, we’ve got to roll back those Medicaid cuts. Two, the rural health care system in this state has been decimated on Senator Collins’ watch. My mother owned a nursing home in a rural part of the state in Coastal Maine in Lubec. It had to shut down 10 years ago because reimbursement rates couldn’t keep the lights on. We’ve lost 10, 11, I think, birthing centers in this state over the last 10 years. If you live in Houlton now and you need medical care for you or your child, you have drive an hour north to Presque Isle or two hours south to Bangor. Heaven forbid it’s an emergency. So I think we need to reinvest in our health care system. My wife’s a nurse, she sees this every single day. You know the cost of prescription drugs continues to skyrocket. I think we need to do something to address the pharmacy benefit managers, the middlemen that do nothing but increase the cost of pharmaceuticals for folks. There’s a whole host of things that we can do to shore up our rural health care system and bring down the cost of prescription drugs for folks and give them some relief.
Another issue that has kind of really affected Maine this year is President Trump’s tariffs. How would you approach this in the Senate?
I’d get rid of them—plain and simple. They have been applied willy-nilly, haphazardly, and have done nothing but inject uncertainty into small business owners’ operations. That’s all they’ve done. And there are attacks on consumers. So they’re increasing the cost of goods for folks, and they’re making it hard for small business owners like myself to plan. How do I know if I can hire more people? Or how do know when I can buy that extra fermenter to make more beer if I don’t know what the cost of the inputs are going to be? It’s paralyzing folks. People have to understand that we just came out of COVID. We thought we were coming out of it and business was kind of getting back to normal and then boom, these tariffs come on and inject this needless uncertainty into business. It’s like a double whammy for small business owners. I’d get rid of them, period. Congress, they have the constitutional authority over the tariff power, and they need to take it back. Senator Collins seems to be OK with Donald Trump imposing tariffs unilaterally.As a United States senator, I would demand that the Senate take back the power that they rightfully have, and so that the people have a say, the people’s houses have a say in when and how tariffs are imposed.
Can you tell me a little bit more about your background in business and how this would shape your approach to Washington as senator?
My brother and I started a small brewery literally out of my garage. He and I just worked on the weekends and started a business from nothing. We’ve grown that into a successful company that has created hundreds of good paying jobs right here in the state of Maine, manufacturing jobs. We support thousands of other jobs throughout this state. We support barley growers and maltster in this state, our wholesalers and our retailors. It’s just that common sense approach. I know what it’s like to hire people. I know when it’s to balance a budget. I know it’s when it like to invest strategically so that you can create more good paying jobs for folks. At the end of the day, Susan Collins has been in the Senate for almost 30 years and I ask people, is your life better today than it was 30 years ago? And almost always it’s a resounding no. The cost of living continues to skyrocket. I think folks are fed up with career politicians. They want folks who have been embedded in their communities, who know what it’s like, again, to create jobs and employ people and do it the right way. We have shown here at Maine Beer Company that we didn’t build this company on the backs of our employees. We didn’t pollute our environment in order to make money. We did it the exact opposite. We invested in our employees. We’re protecting our planet. And we’ve shown that you can create a durable and vibrant economy that way. And I think we need that mindset down in Washington, DC.
Switching gears a little bit, you know, we’ve seen a number of now political assassinations this year with Melissa Hortman and Charlie Kirk. How, as a senator, would you work to bring us back from this place?
I think first and foremost, we need leadership at the top to tone down the rhetoric. We need to get back to a place where at the end of the day, we realize we are all Americans. We’re all Mainers. We’re all Americans. We’re are all worthy to be treated with dignity and respect. We can have differences of opinion on policy, and we should. That’s what makes this country so great. We can disagree with one another and do so, we should be able to do so peacefully. It really does start at the top with just taking down the temperature and having folks that are going to D.C. to actually make people’s lives better and not just engage in performative politics to put out sound bites, to get clickbait on social media, to profit off of incendiary rhetoric just to draw more attention to themselves. I think people frankly are at a breaking point. I think they’re sick and tired of all of the rancor and all of the division. They just want adults down in D.C. working on policy to lower the cost of living, to make sure that folks can afford a home, a quality education, [and] have access to healthcare.They don’t want to be talking about politics 24/7. They want to go to their kids’ t-ball game. They want to go fishing, they want to go hunting, and not have to worry about politics, but that requires that we have adults down in DC that can deliver results. And that’s the kind of politics I engage in. I’m a Democrat that likes to get s*** done. I’m a get s*** done Democrat. We need more pragmatic folks down in D.C. who are focused on actually making people’s lives better instead of just hearing themselves talk. That will work to lower the temperature. We’ve got to start working across the aisle again. It can’t keep going this way. We’ve seen the results, and it’s tragic.
We’ve also seen what many people view as in as a violation of the First Amendment and a reemergence of cancel culture with calls for firings of people over their posts on social media following the Kirk assassination. What do you make of this?
I am a firm believer in the First Amendment. There’s a reason why the freedom of speech is, in fact, the First Amendment that the framers wrote into the Bill of Rights. I would be a stalwart supporter of anyone’s right to say what they choose, no matter if I disagree with it or not, or how heinous I might think it is. Again, that is what makes this country the kind of country it is. It’s the kind country I want my kids to grow up in. Once you start stifling speech, I think it’s a downward spiral to authoritarianism because people can no longer freely say what they want unless you hold power. That’s a really dangerous place to be in. And frankly, I’m heartened to see folks like Senator [Ted] Cruz—I will give him props for standing up and calling this out for what it is, which is dangerous bulls***. I think finally, maybe there’s a little crack, maybe there is a little light coming through where both sides are starting to realize how dangerous it is to go down this road. As a United States Senator, I would be a firm stalwart supporter of the First Amendment and folks right to say whatever they damn well please.
Senator Collins has represented Maine for 30 years and has won in the past. Why do you think Democrats have struggled to unseat her in the past? Looking back at those past campaigns, what are your takeaways, and what might you do differently if you win the nomination to unseat her this time?
I think a lot has changed in the last six years. Frankly. I think first and foremost, Susan Collins has changed. Somewhere, you know, I couldn’t tell you exactly when—maybe it’s when she voted for Justice Kavanaugh—she stopped standing up for Mainers. She voted for Justice Kavanaugh, that a case like Dobbs was going to come down the pike, and that women across this country were going to lose their constitutional right to a safe and legal abortion. Six years have gone by, and the cost of living has done nothing but skyrocket and spiral out of control. Again, I’m going to beat it like a dead horse. Housing, health care, education continue to climb. I think people are finally starting to see through her D.C. political shenanigans. She’s always there when you don’t need her. She’s always willing to cast a vote when it doesn’t matter anymore. People are hurting, they are sick and tired of it. They’re ready for a new generation of leadership. They’re ready for folks who aren’t career politicians, someone like myself, who started a small business.
We’re also in a second Trump administration, which I think by most people’s measure, I know these by mine, is even worse than I thought it could be. The danger this administration poses to folks up here. He came into office promising to lower the cost of living. It continues to escalate because of things like tariffs and this Republican budget bill. People are just sick and tired of things, and I think they’ve reached a breaking point. They look at me as a breath of fresh air, frankly, someone that can deliver results.
You mentioned housing. That is one issue people in Maine, especially younger people looking to buy a home, have faced. In D.C., what kind of policies would you support on home affordability, not just in Maine, but nationwide?
There are several things you can do. One, as someone who has built things, has built buildings, many buildings, I’m very familiar with the construction process. We build things today in 2025 not too different than we built them in 1925. I think the government can play a role in helping to stimulate new modes of building, penalized construction, more efficient building practices to lower the cost of construction. There’s no doubt we need to build more homes, period. So the government can work with states and localities to cut red tape, make it easier for homes to be built to increase the supply.
Part of all of these cost-of-living discussions is the cost of electricity. You need electricity to build anything, homes, you name it, make beer. In what this Republican administration and Congress, including Susan Collins is doing, is doubling down on the energy sources of the 19th and 20th century and penalizing the energy sources of the future, which people who believe in facts understand is a cheaper source of energy from renewables, whether it’s wind or solar. That could help bring down the cost of construction.
There are novel approaches, too. Maybe we should look at folks being able to take their mortgage rate with them. Right now, a big problem is you have folks that are locked into their homes at a low interest rate and it’s a high interest rate environment, They don’t want to sell their homes because they’re going to have to go borrow at a much higher interest rate. There are ideas out there for letting the homeowner take the interest rate with him. So again, it’s that kind of think out of the box mentality that me as a small business owner, I have and I’m willing to listen, and I know I need to listen to new ideas. That’s how you build and grow a business. You understand that you’re not the smartest person in the room. You surround yourself by smart people and listen to good ideas. Those are just a few things you could do.
But I don’t hear anything going on in D.C. When’s the last time you heard about housing in D.C.? Housing policy, healthcare policy, education policy, all you heard was a huge tax break for billionaires. That was the one thing that this Congress has done.
Another important issue during the Trump 2.0 era is immigration. Where do you stand on immigration and border security issues?
We need a safe and secure border, hands down, 100 percent. I think in terms of people coming into the United States, we need an orderly process. We need to secure border. I think our asylum system is broken, and it’s been abused. I think it needs reform. That’s going to require investment in making sure that only people that are true asylum-seekers are able to stay in this country. And that they’re put through the process quickly and orderly to determine if they do in fact deserve asylum. So one, I think it’s controlling the inflow of people in making sure that only the people that go through an orderly and legal process get into the country. And then the question is, what do you do with the people who are here? I think most Americans agree that if you’re someone living in this country and you’ve you have a family and you’re a hard worker and you you’re paying taxes and you are contributing to your community, and the only thing that you did wrong was cross the border, let’s find a process to keep those people in this state or in this country and in the State of Maine. But if you’re here wrongfully and you’re are a drain on society or you’re engaging in criminal activity, let’s get them out. But sending in masked agents into communities and into factories to round up workers. It’s un-American.
I also wanted to ask about a foreign policy question about the issue of aid for Israel amid the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Where do you stand on this?
I think we need to be imposing much more pressure to make sure that humanitarian and medical aid gets into Gaza. What is happening there is an absolute tragedy. As a father of two 14-year-old kids, I look at what’s going on over there, and you can’t be anything but heartbroken and horrified. There are no winners here. And I think, frankly, that the leadership, both in Israel and the terrorist organization that governs over Gaza, Hamas—they’re not doing their people any favors. At the end of the day, both Israelis and the citizens of Gaza are suffering, and it needs to stop. This Trump administration needs to impose pressure to make this come to an end, to get this thing back to a ceasefire and get Hamas to lay down the arms and release their hostages, and get back to some sort of bargaining table so that both people can live in peace. That’s what they deserve.
Lastly, right now, Washington’s facing a budget bill and a potential government shutdown. There’s been a lot of debate about how Senate Democrats should deal with this—should they allow the government to shut down, or should they take a deal that maybe doesn’t include the concessions they would want? As a senator, what would you do on this bill?
First of all, Republicans control both houses of Congress and the White House. This is their budget. They have the power. I think we as Democrats need to hold their feet to the fire. If you want to deal in specifics, I think, we need to require, it has to be a deal breaker, that the ACA credits are reinstated. That they’re reinstated permanently, and that there’s a guarantee that once the deal is done, the administration can’t simply come back and rescind the deal as we saw they did over the summer by rescinding money that Congress already appropriated.
So for me, that’d be a bright line. And if the Republicans are willing to come to the table and be an honest broker, then yeah, because a government shutdown at the end of the day doesn’t benefit anybody except President Trump. As a small business owner, a government shutdown is going to hurt me. If you’re a veteran and you depend on VA benefits, it’s going to hurt veterans. It’s going to hurt seniors. We need adults in the room in Congress, and I don’t see a lot of adult-like behavior. That needs to change because, at the end of the day, who suffers? It’s hardworking folks back here in Maine.
That covers what I had prepared, but do you have any lingering thoughts or anything you want readers to know about you or your campaign?
For folks who are interested in supporting or learning more about the campaign, Dan for Maine is the website. I urge people to go check it out. I’ll leave you with kind of how we started the conversation and that’s because I’m in this race because people are hurting up here. The cost of living continues to skyrocket. Folks in Maine, we’re not looking for a handout. We’re proud people. We just want to know that if we have a good idea, we have a talent, we want to start a small business and d we’re willing to work hard, we want to know that government has our back. And people don’t see that that’s the case anymore. So my pledge to everybody out there listening or reading is that if you send me to the U.S. Senate, I’m going to go to work every single day and we focus like a laser on making your life better. I’m going to be delivering results for you and your family. And so that’s my pledge to folks, and Susan Collins simply is not delivering anymore.