Janet Mills Bio
Janet Trafton Mills (born December 30, 1947) is an American politician and lawyer serving as the 75th governor of Maine. A member of the Democratic Party, she is the first woman to hold the office in state history. Before becoming governor in January 2019, Mills built a long legal and legislative career in Maine, including service as district attorney, state representative, and Maine Attorney General.
Mills has focused her time in office on expanding healthcare access, addressing climate change, protecting abortion rights, and improving relations with Native American tribes. She won reelection in 2022 and, in October 2025, launched a campaign for the United States Senate.
Early Life and Background
Early Life and Background
Janet Trafton Mills was born in Farmington, Maine, on December 30, 1947. She is the daughter of Katherine Louise (Coffin) and Sumner Peter Mills Jr. Her mother worked as a schoolteacher and was a Congregationalist, while her father was a lawyer who served as United States Attorney for Maine in the 1950s. Growing up in small-town Maine gave her an early appreciation for public service and community life.
As a teenager, Mills spent nearly a year bedridden in a full-body cast after being diagnosed with severe scoliosis, which was corrected through surgery. The experience shaped her understanding of healthcare challenges and the importance of access to medical care.
Mills graduated from Farmington High School in 1965. She then briefly attended Colby College before moving to San Francisco, where she worked as a nursing assistant in a psychiatric hospital. She later enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Boston, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1970, and during her time there she traveled through Western Europe and became fluent in French.
Path to Public Service
In 1973, Mills began attending the University of Maine School of Law. During the summer of 1974, she served as an intern in Washington, D.C., for civil rights attorney Charles Morgan Jr. of the American Civil Liberties Union. She earned her Juris Doctor in 1976 and was admitted to the bar that same year.
After law school, Mills was appointed as Maine’s first female criminal prosecutor by Governor Joe Brennan. She worked as an assistant attorney general from 1976 to 1980, prosecuting homicides and other major crimes. In 1980, she was elected district attorney for Androscoggin, Franklin, and Oxford counties, a position to which she was reelected three times. She was the first woman to serve as a district attorney in New England.
Beyond her prosecutorial work, Mills co-founded the Maine Women’s Lobby and was elected to its board of directors in 1998. In 1994, she ran unsuccessfully for the United States Congress in Maine’s 2nd congressional district, losing the Democratic primary to John Baldacci. In 2000, she served as a field coordinator for Bill Bradley’s 2000 presidential campaign in Maine.
Janet Mills Career
Early Career (2002-2008)
In 2002, Mills was elected to the Maine House of Representatives, where she represented the towns of Farmington and Industry. She served on the judiciary, criminal justice, and appropriations committees and was reelected in 2004, 2006, and 2008. Her legislative work established her reputation as a tough-on-crime Democrat with deep knowledge of the legal system.
On January 6, 2009, Mills was elected attorney general by the Maine Legislature, succeeding G. Steven Rowe and becoming the first woman to hold the position. She served from 2009 to 2011 before Republicans gained control of the legislature and declined to reelect her. In February 2011, she joined the law firm Preti Flaherty as a lawyer in the firm’s Litigation Group in its Augusta office, while also serving as vice chair of the Maine Democratic Party starting in January 2011.
Attorney General Breakthrough (2013-2019)
After Democrats regained control of the legislature in 2012, Mills was again chosen as attorney general and took the oath of office on January 7, 2013. She was reelected on December 3, 2014, even as the Maine Senate came under Republican control. Her second stint as attorney general was marked by frequent public disputes with Republican Governor Paul LePage over the legality of his policies.
In 2015, LePage requested the Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s opinion on whether the governor’s office could retain outside counsel when the attorney general declined to represent the state. On May 1, 2017, LePage sued Mills, alleging that she had abused her authority by refusing to represent the state in certain legal matters. Despite the friction, Mills remained a leading figure in Maine’s legal community.
Governorship (2019-Present)
On July 10, 2017, Mills announced her campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor of Maine in 2018. She won the nomination in June 2018 after four rounds of ranked-choice voting, finishing with 54 percent of the vote. In the general election, she defeated Republican Shawn Moody, independent Terry Hayes, and independent Alan Caron, receiving 50.9 percent of the vote to Moody’s 43.2 percent. With more than 320,000 votes, she became Maine’s first female governor and the first gubernatorial candidate in two decades to win at least 50 percent of the vote.
One of Mills’s first acts as governor was to sign an executive order expanding Maine’s Medicaid program under a 2017 voter referendum, a step her predecessor Paul LePage had refused to take. She also dropped Medicaid work requirements and committed Maine to becoming carbon neutral by 2045 when she addressed the United Nations General Assembly in September 2019, becoming the first sitting Maine governor to do so.
Mills ran for reelection in 2022 with no opposition in the primary. She defeated former governor Paul LePage in the general election, receiving more than 376,934 votes and breaking the record she had set four years earlier for the most votes ever cast for a Maine gubernatorial candidate. Her second term has continued to focus on healthcare, environmental protection, tribal relations, and social policy.
Notable Events and Milestones
As governor, Mills has signed legislation banning single-use plastic bags and styrofoam containers, signed a measure ending the Columbus Day state holiday in favor of Indigenous People’s Day, and banned the use of Native American imagery in public schools. In 2025, she publicly clashed with President Donald Trump over transgender athletes’ participation in sports, telling him “see you in court” and successfully challenging a federal funding freeze on Maine’s child nutrition program.
Janet Mills Career Wins
Janet Mills has compiled a long record of public-service victories, beginning with her groundbreaking appointments and elections in the 1970s and 1980s, continuing through her tenure as Maine Attorney General, and culminating in her historic gubernatorial wins in 2018 and 2022.
Electoral Highlights
Mills was elected district attorney for Androscoggin, Franklin, and Oxford counties in 1980 and reelected three times. She was elected to the Maine House of Representatives in 2002 and reelected in 2004, 2006, and 2008. She became Maine’s first female attorney general in 2009 and was elected to two additional terms in 2013 and 2014. She won the 2018 gubernatorial election with 50.9 percent of the vote and was reelected in 2022 with more than 376,934 votes, setting a state record.
Other Wins and Achievements
Beyond electoral victories, Mills secured passage of Medicaid expansion in Maine, ended the state of emergency tied to the COVID-19 pandemic in June 2021, and signed legislation creating a state supplemental budget that included free community college for the high school graduating classes of 2020 through 2023. In 2023, she was elected co-chair of the bipartisan Climate Alliance.
Janet Mills Family
Family Background and Public Service Lineage
Janet Mills comes from a family with deep roots in Maine’s legal and civic life. Her father, Sumner Peter Mills Jr., was a lawyer who served as United States Attorney for Maine in the 1950s. Her mother, Katherine Louise (Coffin), was a schoolteacher and Congregationalist. Mills is the sister of Peter Mills, a former Republican state senator and 2006 and 2010 gubernatorial candidate, Dora Anne Mills, the former public health director and director of the Maine Center for Disease Control, and Paul Mills.
Personal Life
In 1985, Mills married real estate developer Stanley Kuklinski, becoming stepmother to his five daughters. Kuklinski died from the effects of a stroke on September 24, 2014. Mills has five grandchildren. Her primary residence is in Farmington, Maine, where she was born and raised, and as governor she resides at the Blaine House, the governor’s official mansion in Augusta.