In Maine, a Political Novice Makes a Long-Shot Bid to Oust Collins
Democrats hope to recruit Governor Janet Mills to challenge the powerful Republican senator, but an oyster farmer with a working man’s pitch thinks he has a better chance.
Democrats who have tried and failed for years to unseat Senator Susan Collins, the veteran moderate Republican from Maine, are pinning their hopes this time on recruiting Janet Mills, the state’s seasoned Democratic governor, to challenge Ms. Collins’s bid for a sixth term next year.
But Ms. Mills, 77, is being circumspect about her plans for what could be one of the most competitive Senate races in the country. And some Maine Democrats believe she is too conventional a choice to defeat Ms. Collins, a powerful political force who has demonstrated her staying power.
Enter Graham Platner, a 40-year-old oyster farmer and former Marine who served three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, and is set on Tuesday to announce a long-shot challenge to Ms. Collins, with a campaign focused on making life better for his state’s working class.
“We need to stop using the exact same playbook that keeps losing over and over and over again,” said Mr. Platner, a political unknown who serves as the local harbor master in the tiny town of Sullivan. “Running establishment candidates who are chosen or supported by the powers that be in D.C. — in Maine specifically — has been a total failure, certainly in attempts to unseat Susan Collins. It is time for us to try something new.”
A competitive pistol shooter who worked as a bartender at the Tune Inn on Capitol Hill while attending George Washington University on the G.I. Bill, he said that “everyone knows we live in a system that is not built to represent working-class people.”
Mr. Platner said he had been approached in the past to run for local office, and had always turned it down. But when a group of labor unions focused on climate issues reached out to him about running for Senate, Mr. Platner found himself open to the idea.
“The political situation feels like a precipice,” he said. “It feels like it will go really, really dark, or we have an opportunity to claw something back for working people in this country.”
An untested candidate like Mr. Platner may be a risky bet, but some Democratic strategists said that at a moment of deep anti-Washington sentiment, voters are demanding new faces over veteran politicians they view as part of a system that has failed them.
Mr. Platner said he was recruited by political organizers who were worried that “there was going to be a bad decision made for this race, and they went looking around this state for someone. I am terrified that the Democrats are going to squander what could otherwise be a spectacular opportunity.”
He said his campaign would focus relentlessly on the dire economic landscape that has made it difficult to afford a house or health care in his state. And his pitch is that he has a unique ability to “appeal to a lot of voters in Maine who aren’t usually on the side of a Democratic politician, or a lot of people who just stopped voting, because they see a political system they feel does not and cannot represent them.”
He has already attracted some national political operators to work on his campaign. His sepia-toned launch video was produced by Morris Katz, a top adviser to Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor. A senior adviser is Joe Calvello, who previously worked on the campaign of Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Platner, whose light social media footprint indicates that he has supported Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, said he did not define himself as a progressive or a centrist. But he laughed at the idea that he would have any challenge in connecting with supporters of President Trump. Half of his friends and colleagues at the dock voted for Mr. Trump, he said.
“I’m a waterman who works in the ocean with his hands. I’m a competitive pistol shooter — that’s my weekend hobby. I have an extensive combat background,” he said. “Even if I tried to put myself into the buckets that we as a society have created, I don’t fit into any of them.”
Maine Republicans disagree.
“Being a Bernie Bro and Kamala Harris donor is a profile to appeal to Portland progressives, not centrist and conservative voters in rural Maine,” said Jason Savage, the executive director of the Maine Republican Party. (Mr. Platner made a small donation to Ms. Harris’ campaign last year, and in 2016 donated to Mr. Sanders’ presidential campaign.)
In his launch video, Mr. Platner says, “Nobody I know around here can afford a house. Health care is a disaster, hospitals are closing, we have watched all of that get ripped away from us.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/us/politics/maine-senate-candidate-collins.html