Politics newcomer Graham Platner launched his senatorial bid this week with biting critiques of Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, dismissing her moderate image as a “charade” and trying to link her to what he says is a corrupt American political system rigged for the wealthy.
Defeating Collins is Platner’s primary goal, but he and his campaign also signaled that they’re gearing up for a potential fight against power brokers in the Democratic National Committee.
“If national democrats are serious about reaching the male voters they’ve been hemorrhaging then they will support Graham for Senate,” Platner spokesperson Joe Calvello posted on X Tuesday. “He is the answer. The 77 year old governor is not the answer.”
That 77-year-old is Gov. Janet Mills. She hasn’t decided to run, but the national Democrats Calvello was referring to have made her the top recruit to take on Collins. If they’re successful, the U.S. Senate race in Maine could be thrust into a larger struggle over the direction of a Democratic party that’s out of power in Washington, D.C., and facing a declining share of American voters who identify with it.
“I’m staying in the race,” Platner said when asked about Mills’ potential candidacy. “I don't think that running the same old, tired playbook is going to work.”
He added, “There's an anti-establishment angst in the country that I think is well-founded. People think that the system does not represent them, and they're not wrong at all. And I think that sending or choosing candidates who come from the establishment, come from politics — regardless of who they are as people, regardless of what they've pushed — is, in many ways right now, I think, a real liability.”
Platner’s comments about taking on the Democratic establishment may strike some as presumptuous given that few people knew about him beyond the local political activists who’ve previously tried to recruit him to run for the Maine Legislature. But the little-known oyster farmer and military veteran from Sullivan — population 1,219 souls, according to the U.S. Census — made a big splash on launch day as he tried to channel the anger and urgency coursing through the large swaths of the electorate.
Calvello, who worked for Sen. John Fetterman’s successful campaign in 2022, landed profiles and coverage of Platner in the New York Times, Politico and national broadcasters that were all queued for Tuesday’s campaign launch.
Morris Katz, the 26-year-old strategist and ad man working for Zohran Mamdani, the breakout New York City mayoral candidate who defeated establishment pick Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary, produced Platner’s first ad. Instead of festooning Platner in L.L.Bean outfits, the campaign kept the candidate in T-shirts and wetsuits as he swung kettlebells, split wood and emerged from the deep with oysters — all to a soundtrack resembling a GMC truck commercial.
Super butch? Sure. Also super successful according to Calvello, who would later claim the launch video had 2.5 million views in just 24 hours. Google searches for Platner saw a similar surge. Platner said he plans to build a “political movement campaign,” heavy on retail politics and town halls.
It was a professional rollout, the kind one might expect from a campaign with backing from national Democrats, and more specifically, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, or DSCC.
But the DSCC, run by Democratic leaders in the U.S. Senate, is reportedly waiting on Mills. The governor has seemed ambivalent about running and in no hurry to make a decision.
“I mean, look, I wasn't born with a burning desire to be in Washington, D.C. — any month of the year," she said recently. "And what's going on there is a bit chaotic. It's not something anybody would want to jump into and be a part of automatically.”
Mills was focused on closing out her final term as governor when her national profile exploded after her February confrontation with President Donald Trump. National Democrats, reeling after the 2024 election and with no strategy or real power to counter Trump 2.0, quickly seized on Mills’ act of defiance, using her likeness and words — “see you in court” — to raise money for its various campaign committees.
The DSCC has been focused on recruiting her to challenge Collins ever since.
Mills would be a formidable opponent. She easily vanquished conservative firebrand and former Gov. Paul LePage when he tried to make a political comeback in 2022. While her victory was secured by overwhelming margins in Maine’s more liberal 1st Congressional District, she only lost to LePage in the Trump-friendly 2nd District by two percentage points.
Still, there are questions beyond Mills’ willingness to run. The two-term governor will be 78 in November. If she runs, she’ll be part of a DSCC recruitment class that The Atlantic recently described as having one thing in common: “They’re old.”
Mills’ age may not be a big deal in a matchup with Collins, who will be 73 in December. But it might be in a Democratic primary with candidates like Platner, 40, and Jordan Wood, 35. Both have indicated they’ll stay in the race even if Mills enters (there are four other Democrats running, but only one other, Tucker Favreau, raised any money as of the last campaign finance reporting period).
The DSCC has ways of forcing candidates it hasn’t picked to quit: endorsements, a move that can starve other challengers of campaign cash and other assistance. That’s what happened in 2019 when the DSCC and EMILYs List, a group backing women candidates who fight for abortion-rights, endorsed former Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon almost immediately after she announced her campaign against Collins.
Gideon sailed through the Democratic primary, hauling in a record $75 million. Collins, trailing in most of the polls up until Election Day, won by more than eight percentage points. Gideon ended her campaign with nearly $15 million unspent and little reason to spend it. Maine’s media market and airwaves were already swamped with campaign ads.
The DSCC could pull a similar maneuver if Mills gets in the race. It reportedly pressured U.S. Rep. J.D. Scholten recently to drop his senatorial bid so that its pick, U.S. Rep. Josh Turek, could run unchallenged in the primary — a move known as “clearing the field.”
But there are signs that Democratic primary voters might rebel against field clearing, especially in this political moment. Polls indicate that the Democratic party is not popular right now, including with people who identify as Democrats. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey taken in July showed that many Democrats think the party is “weak” and “ineffective.”
Platner’s campaign seems to be banking on the belief that Democratic primary voters will want a different approach. On Wednesday, Platner railed against the party’s fundraising appeals to help it fight fascism.
“We’re not idiots. Everyone knows most of them aren’t doing jack (expletive) right now to fight back,” he wrote in a widely shared Facebook post.
Maine's Political Pulse was written this week by State House bureau chief Steve Mistler and produced by news editor Andrew Catalina. Read past editions or listen to the Political Pulse podcast at mainepublic.org/pulse.
