Dan Kleban, founder of Freeport-based Maine Beer Co., has entered the race to unseat longtime U.S. Senator Susan Collins.
Kleban is the latest candidate to join a growing field of challengers in the state’s Democratic primary to take on Collins, a Republican, in 2026.
“I’m running for U.S. Senate because politicians in Washington, they’re making it harder to do what’s right for Maine,” Kleban said in a video on his campaign website, which launched today. “Donald Trump is trampling on the values of Mainers and tearing this country apart. And Susan Collins, she’s been in Washington for 30 years. She stopped looking out for us. She lied about protecting abortion rights, and she refuses to stand up to Donald Trump when it really matters. Enough is enough.”
In the video, Kleban traced Maine Beer’s entrepreneurial roots to the failed policies that created the Great Recession. At the time, he was an associate attorney at a Portland law firm and a hobbyist homebrewer with his brother.
Kleban was laid off in 2008, and channeled his frustration with the corporations whose actions led to a nationwide economic downturn into building a people-centric company with his brother.
“They collapsed our economy and walked away with no consequences,” Kleban said of the big banks. “Hard-working Mainers, they lost their homes, their pensions, and struggled to get by.
“I was angry at the big banks,” he continued. “I wanted to do something. So my brother and I, we set out to prove you could run a successful business by doing what’s right. We promised ourselves that anybody we hired would get a living wage, employee healthcare fully paid, profit sharing and a retirement plan.”
The brothers turned their homebrewing pastime into a career and opened Maine Beer’s first location on Industrial Way in Portland in 2009, with seed money from Kleban’s wife Beth, who cashed out her 401(k).
Maine Beer has more than doubled its production since 2020, recording four consecutive years of double-digit volume growth. The company’s outlier year in 2020, when its volume fell 22%, was during the COVID-19 pandemic’s shutdowns.
Last year, the brewery – which famously packages its beer exclusively in 500 mL glass bottles and on draft – produced 45,210 barrels of beer, a 13% year-over-year increase, according to data from the Brewers Association (BA). Maine Beer ranked as the trade group’s 52nd largest independent craft brewery by volume.
The brewery distributes to 31 states and Washington, D.C., according to its website.
In addition to running Maine Beer, Kleban has served several terms on the BA’s board of directors, including a turn as board chairman for the 2020-2021 term. During that time, the trade organization developed a process to report and discipline breweries that ran afoul of its code of conduct and launched an initiative to combat harassment following an industry-wide reckoning with misogyny.
In his debut campaign video, Kleban does not mention political parties by name, but “Democrat for Senate” appears under his name briefly at the beginning. Other entrants in the Democratic primary to challenge Collins include Graham Platner, a harbor master, oyster farmer and military veteran who has secured the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT); and Jordan Hill, chief of staff to former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA).
It is unclear if Gov. Janet Mills will enter the fray after her second and final term as the state’s top executive ends next year.
Collins, who is approaching 30 years in the Senate, handily defeated her last challenger, Sara Gideon, former speaker of the Maine House of Representatives. Despite Gideon outspending Collins, the incumbent won reelection by 9%.
Kleban follows in the footsteps of Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO), who co-founded Denver’s Wynkoop Brewing in 1988 before launching a successful political career as Denver mayor (2003-2011) and Colorado governor (2011-2019). He unseated Republican incumbent Cory Gardner in 2020. Last year, Hickenlooper announced his 2026 bid for re-election will be his final political campaign.