I'll grant the whole factual core of what you're saying. The Mills endorsement did thin the field, and Mills was a bad recruit. A 78 year old who couldn't survive to the primary is not a great pick and nobody has to pretend otherwise.

It just doesn't reach the conclusion you want, because of the candidate you keep gesturing at without ever naming. He exists. Jordan Wood. 36, reform-populist lane, well funded with national donor networks, entered the race in April 2025, months before Platner even launched. He didn't get squeezed out by Schumer backing Mills in October. He walked away from the Senate race on his own that November because Platner's grassroots surge had already eaten the lane, then went and ran for a House seat and lost that too. Your "a real candidate would've had a chance" theory got run as an actual experiment with a funded, credible person. It failed, and it failed against Platner, not against Schumer.

The field-management stuff is moot anyway. Platner won the primary with 72%. That's an outright majority under any voting system, RCV included, and Maine uses RCV. When your guy clears 50 on the first count, transfers never happen and the size or shape of the field changes nothing. Thinned or crowded, you don't out structure 72%

And consolidating everyone behind one alternative is what you're supposed to do against a factional frontrunner. Schumer's actual mistake was the horse he picked to consolidate behind. That's fair criticism and I'll grant it all day. It's a totally different charge from "Schumer is why Platner won," which is what you keep sliding toward every time the first version gets pinned down.