A former Bar Harbor restaurant owner says he’s running as an independent for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Susan Collins.

Tim Rich, a former vice chair of Hospitality Maine, an advocacy group for restaurants and hotels, said he’s running as a political outsider who believes “corporations and the two political parties have lied to us while taking away our basic freedoms.”

“I.C.E. is targeting Maine now and already kidnapping teenagers walking down the street,” Rich, 48, of Bridgton, said in a written statement, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is ramping up activity in Maine.

“We are all sitting back while big companies poison our food and steal our water. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars on wars while our people go broke. We are tracked constantly. We can’t allow this to happen anymore. We need to stop thinking about ourselves and start thinking about what kind of world we are passing on to our children.”

Rich faces long odds in the U.S. Senate race, which is expected to be one of the most competitive and expensive in the country this cycle.

Collins, who is running for a sixth term, got a boost this week when the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, announced an initial investment of $42 million to help the incumbent.

Two-term Gov. Janet Mills, 78, and political newcomer Graham Platner, a 41-year-old combat veteran and oyster farmer from Sullivan, are the leading candidates in the Democratic primary.

Platner burst onto the political scene with the help of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who hyped the candidate’s working-class background.

Rich is also playing up his humble roots, noting that he grew up in poverty. His dad dropped out of school in ninth grade and his mom worked as a lunch lady in local schools, his campaign said.

Rich was the longtime owner of Bar Harbor’s The Independent Cafe and worked as a union organizer, his campaign said. He sold the business and went into debt to take care of his elderly mother when she couldn’t take care of herself.