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By Alex J. Rouhandeh
National Political Correspondent
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The morning was rainy and glooming in Augusta, Maine, but the mood couldn’t be sunnier inside the opulent historic residence known as the Governor Hill Mansion.
“Centrists are dead!” state Representative Valli Geiger declared in the stately dining room. “I can’t believe it!” state Representative Jan Dodge enthused. The ebullient legislators were among the dozen-plus state officials gathered on April 30 to endorse Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner, a 41-year-old oyster farmer and former Marine who’s never held elective office.
But the bigger news had come earlier that morning when Platner’s opponent in the Democratic primary, 78-year-old Governor Janet Mills, unexpectedly dropped out of the race. It happened to follow the final day of the state legislative session and effectively the last day state legislators would have to work with the term-limited governor. “I just hope she doesn’t think we’re piling on,” said state Representative Matthew Beck.
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Platner’s political rise despite the opposition of national Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, chaired by his New York peer, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, marks one of the most stunning ascents of the Trump 2.0 era. In his August 20, 2025, campaign launch video, Platner, outfitted in a dirty blue sweatshirt and standing on his oyster boat with a rock music soundtrack, declared, “I’m not afraid to name an enemy, and the enemy is the oligarchy.” In his burly baritone, Platner laid out an array of policy positions that’d make Senator Bernie Sanders proud and, 10 days later, received the Vermont democratic socialist's endorsement.
Not long after came a pile-on by the Democratic establishment who wanted no unknown variables in the the effort to defeat five-term Republican Senator Susan Collins, a flip that is essential to Democrats' hopes of retaking control of the Senate in the midterms. Mills announced her candidacy on October 14.
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Two days later, CNN reported Platner had posted a number of incendiary comments on Reddit such as identifying as a “communist” and “cops are bastards. All of them, in fact.” Then, five days later, The Maine Monitor reported Platner had a tattoo on his chest of a particular Totenkopf, a skull-and-crossbones,associated with the Nazi SS.
Platner apologized for the posts, explaining they stemmed from the dark place he was in at the time as a combat veteran reacclimating to civilian life. He said the tattoo was a drunken mistake he’d made on a night out on leave in Croatia with fellow Marines, that he hadn’t known what it symbolized and, after several days of social media furor, announced he’d had it covered up. Nonetheless, he faced a staff exodus, and the pundits who’d once declared him the future of the Democratic Party pronounced his candidacy dead.
So, too, have Republicans. “Graham Platner is as phony as they come. Mainers will see him for who he really is: an out-of-touch rich kid who never takes accountability for his actions and repeatedly expressed his hatred for rural Maine, women, and minorities,” Samantha Cantrell, press secretary for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the organization tasked with defeating Platner, said in a statement.
Nonetheless, Platner hung on, and he attributes his resilience to an aspect of his life overlooked in much of his early national coverage.
“The organizing stuff didn't, like, come into creation because of the campaign. The campaign happened because of the organizing stuff,” he told Newsweek shortly after clinching the Senate nomination. "That’s what I’ve been doing for the past few years.”
“Organizing” may not be the sexiest term in U.S. politics, and even some close to Platner joke that he talks about it too much. Nonetheless, it’s what allowed him to overcome scrutiny and face down the Democratic establishment. It’s also what he’ll rely on in his effort to unseat Collins this November.
Most polls have Platner ahead—however Collins trailed in every preelection poll in her last election in 2020. If he wins, though, Platner essentially would become the first Democrat to unseat a Republican senator through a progressive, economic populist campaign. His victory would inevitably inspire copycats looking to replicate his playbook.
Yet, Platner is not easily replicable. While his authenticity no doubt has won him the support of Maine Democrats, it’s also authentically the case that there are many “Grahams” who make up Graham Platner. There’s Graham the Soldier, Graham the Worker, Graham the Thinker, Graham the Activist, and Graham the Speaker. All come together in a story about the man who could be Maine’s next U.S. senator.
Graham the Soldier
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“I am of the normal world,” Platner told Newsweek. “My father is a small-town lawyer in Ellsworth, Maine. My mom opened a restaurant when she was 20. She's still running a restaurant because she has no money, and she can't retire.”
Growing up, he said, “I wanted to be a soldier since I was 2 years old…I was drawn towards service, and I was drawn towards adventure.”
In high school, though, classmate Josh Keefe, now a reporter for the Maine Monitor, wrote that Platner “skipped school to protest the coming Iraq war when President George W. Bush visited our local airport—and was forcibly removed by the Secret Service.”
At age 19, he joined the Marines and ultimately served four tours in the military—three in Iraq with the Marines and one with the Army in Afghanistan—for a total of eight years. The decision to enlist after high school graduation was complicated but came from that childhood desire to serve the country.
“I very much believed at the time that I had done everything I could as an American citizen, using my First Amendment rights, to stop that war from happening. I protested it, I spoke out against it, and when the time came, and that hadn't been stopped and the war started anyways, there was a part of me that felt that because I had used my rights as an American, I did have a duty to the nation.”
After his first four-year term, Platner enrolled at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., but itched for military life and reupped, but with the Army because the Marines had introduced restrictions on tattoos.
After his deployment was up, he returned to GWU and worked as a bartender but eventually withdrew and went back to Maine to seek treatment for PTSD and other combat injuries. He attempted one more stint at a military adjacent life, as a contractor working on a State Department security detail, before deciding he had enough and returning to his hometown of Sullivan for good in 2018.
On April 29, the American Legion Post 135 in Sabattus, Maine, an old and tiny building with modest tiled floors and dingy ceiling panels, was filled near capacity in anticipation of Platner’s appearance. Many attendees were senior citizens but there were some younger folks as well. Some came as fans, others came with skepticism, almost everyone wore jeans. Platner has staked out an anti-interventionist position on Gaza, calling Israel's actions there a "genocide" and seeks to cut off military aid.
“Instead of dumping all of our public money into buckets of blood in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran and Gaza, what if we dump that money into our communities?” was one of Platner's most applauded moments of the night.
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Moe Toirer, a Vietnam War veteran, told Newsweek he trusts Platner’s commitment to bring about change. “He was a service guy. I’m a service guy. We fought for our country,” Toirer said. “There’s no reason for us to go to war right now.” Toirer said he fears the direction the country is headed and worries for the future of his grandchildren.
Platner has said that he made his controversial online posts past during a dark period when he was dealing with PTSD.
“I had no idea where I fit in in society,” Platner told Newsweek. “Looking back on it, probably, I think [looking for community] has a lot to do with it.” He said these feelings of isolation, feelings of disillusionment with a society that allowed such a war to happen are a “standard experience” for combat veterans.
For Platner’s supporters in Maine, that message appears to resonate. “I said things I shouldn’t have said in the past, and I’ve changed,” said Linda Pelletir, a 74-year-old Platner volunteer. As for the Totenkopf: “That tattoo thing was stupid, I think, but that's all they could dig up on him.”
To Republicans who say he’s making excuses, Platner responds, “They're the ones that sent me to Iraq in the first place, so I really don't have much interest in what they have to say. You don't get to, like, send the young men and women off to fight in stupid wars, and then after they come back from those stupid wars and are dealing with the realities and the repercussions of taking part in that kind of pointless violence, then turn that against them. That's an utterly ridiculous thing.”
Graham the Worker
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While Platner's first jobs as a kid included raking blueberries and washing dishes, his early adult life in the military paints the picture of a man whose formative years were not the quintessential working-class experience, an experience neither personified in the men who came before him. Platner’s grandfather Warren Platner designed Windows on the World, a former Wall Street watering hole atop the World Trade Center, and his father Bronson Platner attended Dartmouth, practiced law and sent him to private school.
The part of eastern Maine where he grew up was so small that there were only about 1,000 other school-age children. Platner said this meant he was exposed to all of Sullivan’s various classes, whether kids from blue collar families or others descended from generational wealth who summered in the area.
When he returned after his military service, Platner described oyster farming as what “saved” him. Because of his disabled veteran status, he was entitled to government health care.
“It gave me the freedom to sink my time and my energy and my intellect into mastering the skills necessary to make a living on the sea which is the best thing that ever happened to me,” Platner said in his town hall speech in Sabattus. “It allowed me to start a small business, run my oyster farm, become a diver, sink time into my community planning board and as the Harbor Master.”
It’s that job, a role that includes managing a port and enforcing regulations, that put Platner on the radar of Maine labor leaders, who have become a core of his Senate campaign. With endorsements from the bulk of the state’s unions, Platner often centers his pro-worker message around those who make ends meet through that “hardscrabble way of life.”
“Those things are great, but that doesn't impress me as much as someone that you don't have to teach to give a sh-t about workers,” Jason Shedlock, a Maine labor leader and statehouse candidate who helped identify Platner as a candidate, told Newsweek. “Anytime I’m speaking with anyone, let alone a political candidate, who can finish my sentences, I’m going to pay attention. I look for authenticity, a true north, and an ability to communicate and my conversation with Graham checked those boxes.”
In his speeches, Platner says, “Power comes from one of two things: organized money or organized people.”
He sees organized labor as a central force in the effort to enact policy that will result in a more economically equitable society. The model for his platform is President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a New York aristocrat whose New Deal uplifted the poor, empowered organized labor and earned him the label “traitor to his class” from opponents.
Platner, who opponents have paint as privileged, insists that it was not just his time as an oysterman that led to the centering of organized labor in his politics. Rather, it came from his position as a student of history.
Graham the Thinker
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Platner’s reading began with Hemingway and military history before expanding into territory that would shape his politics: A history teacher recommended Gore Vidal’s book on Vice President Aaron Burr (1801-1805), which Platner enjoyed for its political critique. An English teacher introduced him to Irish literature, which led to an interest in Irish politics, “which is obviously one of resistance to oppression, and that sort of set the groundwork,” he said.
Jane McAlevey, the late union organizer and academic, was the one who sparked Platner’s connection with labor politics. He was listening to a Majority Report episode that had her on as a guest where she discussed power structures and organizing.
“I was honestly fascinated by it, and so I went and picked up her book No Shortcuts, and that changed my brain about how I thought about power.” In short, McAlevey argued that change can only be made through organizing, turning people out in numbers simply isn’t enough.
“I think to have a theory of power you need a vision of the future. For me, that vision is a society in which we prioritize people over profits,” Platner said. “In this current system that we have, power comes from organized people or organized money. The money is absolutely organized, and we don't have the money, so we have to organize the people to build that power and take it back.”
But given his battles with establishment Democrats, how would Platner avoid falling into the molds of former Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who notoriously took turns bucking Democrats as the 51st vote in the Senate during the Biden administration?
Or would he follow John Fetterman, who won his Pennsylvania Senate seat as a Democrat who could appeal to working class voters but clashes so often with his party that TikTokers call him a “Republican in a hoodie”?
Platner told Newsweek that he would be a coalition builder. He points to an informal group called the “Fight Club,” which The New York Times reports to include Senators Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Tina Smith of Minnesota, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, as potential allies. Platner said he can “add to their ranks” and has also named Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island as someone with whom he’s developed a relationship.
“With Graham, within five minutes, I was like, ‘this is someone who can transform the Democratic Party and transform the Senate,’” said Morris Katz, a political strategist on Fetterman’s 2022 campaign before working on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s victory. Katz was part of the national team that identified Platner and launched his candidacy.
“Very rarely do you get to work with a candidate who's more interested in not just reflecting what polling is going to say but wanting to change what polling indicates. Graham is not sticking his finger up and seeing which way the wind is blowing. Graham believes that a mass working class movement can change the direction that the wind's blowing.”
If elected, Platner would find himself serving alongside a Democratic establishment leadership that has made it clear it doesn’t want him. The feeling is mutual: Soon after his campaign announcement in 2025, Platner told Politico he wouldn’t support Schumer as majority leader if Democrats win the Senate.
Beyond working through coalitions, though, Platner said he plans to use his media profile and voice to draw attention to the issues he cares about most, utilizing his organizing skills to draw activist attention toward the agenda he wants to see accomplished.
Graham the Activist
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If it helps to advance his priorities, Platner told supporters in Sabattus, "I fully intend to get arrested in the protest line.”
After Trump was reelected in 2024, Megan Smith, an organizer in Penobscot County with Maine People’s Alliance, the state's largest community organization, was tasked with building a chapter in Bangor. She told Newsweek Platner showed up to one of her meetings and soon became one of her “core first members.” Platner had helped revitalize a public-service organization called Acadia Action near his hometown and wanted to get more skilled at organizing.
In March 2025, Platner traveled to D.C. and went through a program to train marshals and peacekeepers to support rallies and then returned to Maine to work on a series of anti-Trump protests in Ellsworth, Augusta and other parts of the state. He also helped on one of the MPA’s “empty chair” town halls to protest Representative Jared Golden, a centrist Democrat who the organization felt was not responding to the concerns of his constituents. Last November, Golden announced he would not be running for reelection this year.
Platner chose the MPA’s deputy director Ben Chin as his Senate campaign manager. When the group endorsed Platner in February, its press release included a photo of him in a fluorescent vest and red hat that matched the color of his face. Platner had just been protesting in D.C. in favor of health care access, and though he called the photo one of the worst taken of him, he said he couldn’t be prouder of it.
When Platner launched his candidacy, Smith said, “I don’t think he thought he had a chance he could win at all. For him, it was about building something. It was about building something that could last after the election in communities across Maine, and that was why, at least in our conversations, he wanted to run for office: to build, to teach people to organize in their communities, and to have an infrastructure that would exist after the primary, after the general.”
In a conversation with Newsweek, Platner confirmed this, unprompted: “When the opportunity arose, my wife and I had a long discussion about it, and we very much felt that we could now do the kind of work we'd been doing locally on a statewide scale and with more resources and visibility than we could have ever dreamed of as local organizers.”
The campaign that emerged now counts 15,000 Maine volunteers (roughly 1 percent of Maine’s 1.5 million population) and raised over $4 million last quarter—outpacing Collins—with 98 percent of donations under $200.
Graham the Speaker
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Newsweek attended six events with Platner over three days, hearing his speeches over and over. His intonation, use of dramatic pause, ability to memorize points and skill at handling questions outclasses the vast majority of the 535 politicians currently plying their trade on Capitol Hill.
Along with captaining his high school wrestling team, Platner also starred as Henry Higgins in the school’s musical, My Fair Lady. Platner brushed off the suggestion that this acting experience has helped him resonate with crowds on the campaign trail.
“Nothing that I am saying is different from what I have heard from friends and neighbors and just people in my community,” he told Newsweek. “But quite honestly, I think the reason why people are all responding so well is because we all know what’s going on but we have a political system that refuses to engage with the reality of it, and I get to come out and say it out loud.”
Communication skills are a force in a state as small as Maine where politics can still be face-to-face. Platner’s persistent town hall schedule and his willingness to talk to Republicans have made his supporters optimistic he can win over those who split their ticket for Collins and Biden back in 2020 and maybe even those who voted for Trump in 2024.
Platner told Newsweek he has spoken with Schumer and expects backing from the Democratic Party’s financial network, which he acknowledges will be essential to taking out Collins with her support by the Republican Party’s war chest. However, he was steadfast in his commitment to not altering his techniques or positions.
Andy O’Brien, a former Democratic member of the Maine legislature and the current communications director for the Maine AFL-CIO, a statewide federation of local unions, believes this stance sets Platner apart from Collins’ 2020 Democratic opponent, former Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon.
“We endorsed Gideon, and I went door to door for her, and we did a lot of work,” O’Brien said. “She ran a very sterile campaign. It was very much consultant driven. They ran these just really stupid ads on bipartisanship—her talking points were just so sanitized. Graham’s campaign isn’t like that.”
Therein lies the tension Platner is bound to face: Focused on economics, labor groups have at times shunned social justice activism. Focused on protest slogans, activists have at times alienated veterans. Disillusioned by policy, veterans have at times scorned Washington’s thinkers. And as for Washington thinkers, everyone sometimes dismiss them as all talk. Yet for Platner, each of these groups are communities to which he authentically belongs. He believes by reconciling them, he can be an advocate for Maine and working people.
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“For me personally, like none of these things seem contradictory. I believe one can absolutely take part in musicals and be the wrestling captain. I don't think those things are contradictory in the slightest. I think that one can have a moral or a political aversion to the wars that one's government chooses to partake in, but, as a young person, can also very much feel the need to serve one's country,” Platner said. “The fact that it seems contradictory, I think maybe is more of like, that's more of a statement on our culture and our society than anything else.”
Those contradictions, though, can breed skepticism and concern. At the Sabattus American Legion Post town hall, the second most notable moment came when a woman questioned whether she could be sure more information would not come out about Platner ahead of the November election. She said she feared his candidacy could end up like that of Eric Swalwell, a frontrunner in the California governor’s race who pulled out after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced.
“Eric Swalwell was doing these things in power,” Platner replied. “I've never been close to money and power. I've never had some kind of, like, weird, I don't know, weird relationships with people. I have a lot of ex-girlfriends. They're all still my friends.” Platner said everything on him has been dug up, and after some back and forth, the woman declared him trustworthy.
Those in Platner's orbit said that it's his willingness to handle questions like that one and to speak openly about his experiences and address where some may see contradictions that make him a strong candidate.
“I'm fully convinced that a lot of the narratives we have around things like masculinity, around things like national service, around things like loving one's country, these are stories we tell ourselves that in my experience do not reflect reality,” Platner told Newsweek. “They don't reflect what people actually do and how they engage with these things. And if by running for U.S. Senate, my life experience can be used as an example of why many of these narratives and stories are very incorrect, I'm very happy to have that happen.”
For now, Platner has been able to reconcile the various aspects of his identity into one organized force. “I fundamentally believe the challenges we are facing today are challenges that are going to require mass mobilization, public investment and political will to make it all happen,” Platner said. “Organizing is in the service of building the kind of power that we're going to need to make the systemic changes so we don't all start living in a future run by the oligarchy.”
Correction 05/08/26, 11:30 a.m. ET: An earlier version of this article misspelled Platner's last name in one instance.
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