The Plat Path: Can Graham Platner Win?

The oysterman has had a charmed launch to his longshot bid to take out Susan Collins. But can he keep it going all the way to Capitol Hill?

In the week since Graham Platner launched his longshot bid to unseat Susan Collins, he’s been featured in The Guardian and New York Times, he had an interview on Morning Joe,¹ and Bernie Sanders announced that he’s coming to Maine’s largest city on Labor Day to campaign for him. The 40-year-old U.S. Marine veteran, oysterman, and harbormaster from a coastal town of 1,200 had over 2,000 volunteers sign up for shifts, 500 attendees to a volunteer coordination Zoom, a well-received Reddit AMA, and a CNN hit where he sharply criticized Chuck Schumer. Platner is already overshadowing the Sanders-endorsed gubernatorial candidate Troy Jackson, who will also be at the Labor Day rally and has been actively campaigning since April.²

Platner’s campaign launch — coordinated by former John Fetterman communications director Joe Calvello and Zohran Mamdani video director Morris Katz — has been nothing short of unprecedented in terms of its success. The oysterman went from unknown to rising Democratic superstar practically overnight, with people around the country attracted to his strong message: fuck the oligarchy, fuck Trump, and Free Palestine. Unlike a lot of Senate candidates backed by the Democratic establishment,³ Platner’s website features a detailed platform, firmly staking himself on the left. He is unafraid to call what’s happening in Gaza a genocide. He seems to be following the Mamdani playbook, tailored for an audience of Mainers.

Calvello and Katz both have experience crafting winning Democratic primary campaigns against establishment-backed figures. Before his heel-turn, John Fetterman was a progressive darling for years as Mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, a depressed steel town. Fetterman — who was already a popular figure among political nerds like me — got widespread attention when he launched an insurgent campaign for U.S. Senate in 2016, simultaneously backing Sanders’ presidential campaign. He would be defeated in the primary in a landslide by establishment favorite Katie McGinty,⁴ but the attention and goodwill he generated with that campaign spurred him to run for lieutenant governor in 2018. He would defeat the incumbent lieutenant governor in the primary and be elected in November on Governor Tom Wolf’s ticket. In 2022, he opted to run for the senate seat that had eluded him six years prior, easily dispatching establishment candidate Conor Lamb in the primary by carrying every Pennsylvania county.⁵

Mamdani has had an even more impressive rise — a Quinnipiac poll showed the little-known New York State Assemblyman polling as low as 8% in the Democratic mayoral primary in March, and a SurveyUSA poll found him with 11% as late as May. But on primary day, he defeated scandal-plagued ex-governor Andrew Cuomo in a stunning upset. When the votes started to be counted, the result was never in doubt. It was a landslide.

Calvello and Katz seem to think they’ve got a Fetterman-cum-Mamdani on their hands — someone who can energize turnout among the party’s progressive base (like Mamdani) while projecting a working class, everyman image that will appeal to independents and soft Trump supporters (like Fetterman).

This begs the obvious question: can Graham Platner actually pull it off?

The primary

To the consternation of basically every Democrat, all of the people who are challenging Susan Collins are first-time candidates. They include Tucker Favreau, a cybersecurity expert; Natasha Alcala, an activist; David Costello, the doomed 2024 Democratic nominee for Senate against Independent-but-basically-a-Democrat Angus King; and Jordan Wood, the ex-Chief of Staff to ex-California congresswoman⁶ Katie Porter. Until Platner jumped in, Wood seemed to be the strongest candidate in a very weak field — he raised $1 million in the seven weeks after he launched his campaign, and (like Platner) he had a glitzy campaign launch video. But compared to the oysterman from Sullivan, Wood has generated basically zero buzz, even among Democrats.⁷

Should no one else enter the primary, Platner would almost certainly win, and by some margin. No one else is getting any attention. But that’s just the thing — national Democrats have been lobbying Governor Janet Mills to enter the race for months now. Earlier this month, a Washington Post report indicated that, should Mills pass, Attorney General Aaron Frey would “likely” get in. Former State Senator Cathy Breen, State House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, and businessman Dan Kleban (founder of the Maine Beer Company, giving him a quasi-Platnerian background) have all expressed interest in mounting campaigns, but I doubt any of them would run should Mills choose to.

If Janet Mills enters the Democratic primary, Graham Platner probably loses and probably loses by a lot.

To his credit, Platner said he would remain in the race if Mills chooses to enter (so has Jordan Wood). But Mills is a titanic candidate. There’s a reason why national Democrats have been begging her to run. Though her tenure as governor has irked the left, she is a strong campaigner, has an impeccable electoral record, is a prodigious fundraiser, and (on paper) would be the strongest candidate Susan Collins will have ever faced since her narrow first-term victory in 1996 over former governor Joe Brennan. Mills has even got back in the good with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party when she told Trump “see you in court” to his face after Trump ordered federal money withheld from Maine over Mills’ compliance with Maine’s Human Rights Act. At a time when Democrats were looking for leaders to stand up to Trump, Mills stepped into the role.

This isn’t to say that she’s a perfect candidate. Despite her tussle with Trump, Mills remains firmly in the center of the Democratic Party. She has been silent on the genocide in Gaza. She will be 79 on election day 2026, which would make her the oldest freshman senator in history should she be elected. But her name recognition and electoral track record means that even the most perfectly-run Platner campaign would still result in the oysterman being a longshot against Mills.

Now, if Mills passes, Platner’s path becomes clearer. He is the most obvious anti-establishment candidate. Frey, Fecteau, and/or Breen would become the Chuck Schumer/DSCC candidate of choice (by virtue of not being Graham Platner), in an election where Schumer is despised even among Democrats. I think, with grassroots enthusiasm and a strong neighborhood-level campaign, Platner could dispatch any Maine Democrat not named Janet Mills. In fact, with how solid his launch has been, I daresay that Platner should even be favored over Frey, Fecteau, and Breen. Those three wouldn’t come close to matching the energy around Platner’s campaign, and they don’t have that big of a name recognition advantage over him either.

The general election

Susan Collins, promising to serve only two terms, back when Graham Platner was in middle school.

So let’s say he wins the primary. Now comes the hard part.

Susan Collins is a formidable candidate. She doesn’t keep getting re-elected in a blue state for no reason. She should not be underestimated, and polls indicating that she has low favorability should be taken with a mountain of salt. She survived the Democratic Party’s best shot in 2020, dispatching House Speaker Sara Gideon by eight points.

With hindsight, though, it’s easy to see that Gideon ran a less-than-stellar campaign. She had millions of dollars left in her campaign account after the election was over. She had little campaign message — she continually referenced how, as House Speaker, she ended the Maine House’s partisan seating arrangement in her most-aired ad. She left lines of attack against Collins unexplored, like never pledging to hold more town halls than Collins (who hasn’t held a town hall in so long that we’re not even sure when she held her last one), and not holding herself to a term limit. The biggest issue, however, is that Gideon’s roots in the state were light. She’s a Rhode Island native who moved to Maine after marrying a Mainer. She didn’t come off as “one of us”.⁸ It was easy for voters to view gaining Gideon while losing Collins as an unappealing deal.

Graham Platner will not have that problem. He curses like a sailor, he’s unapologetic in his beliefs, and as a harbormaster for a small town in Hancock County no one will question his Maine bonafides. The guy looks like he just stepped out of central casting for “Dude from Maine.” Platner is the antithesis of the establishment. He mentioned in his New York Times profile that “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.”

He’s, of course, right. Gideon looked, spoke, and campaigned like “Generic Democrat” and Mainers didn’t think gaining “Generic Democrat” was worth losing Susan Collins (and her seniority). This trend was not unique to Sara Gideon — Collins easily dispatched congressman Tom Allen in 2008, even as Barack Obama carried Maine by 17 points, and did the same to Maine Senate President (and future congresswoman) Chellie Pingree in 2002, even as a Democrat was elected governor on the same ballot. Both Allen and Pingree could be described as “Generic Democrats”.⁹

Graham Platner is very much not “Generic Democrat,” and he seems proud of that. He’s already proven that he’s just as likely to poke Chuck Schumer in the eye as he is to slap Donald Trump. Mainers have an independent streak — we were Ross Perot’s best state in 1992 and 1996, one of our senators is (nominally) an independent, unenrolled voters now outnumber registered Democrats — Platner’s willingness to call out bullshit from both parties will broaden his appeal.

And the best part is, this style of Democrat has worked in Maine.

Troy Jackson, the gubernatorial candidate who will join Platner and Sanders at the Portland rally, held his Trump-voting state senate seat on the Canadian border in Aroostook County in 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022. When he was term-limited in 2024, it flipped to the GOP, with the Republican winning with two-thirds of the vote.

Jackson endorsed Bernie Sanders in both 2016 and 2020. He is intimately connected to the labor movement. He was the driving force behind countless progressive bills during his tenure in the State Senate (some of which fell victim to the veto pen of Janet Mills).

Of course, there’s a different calculation going on when you’re voting for your local state senator as opposed to your U.S. senator. But Jackson’s electoral success as a progressive in Trump Country does show us that there indeed is an appetite for left-wing populism in rural Maine.

So…can he win?

In a word…yes. Maine is a blue state, but the secret formula to winning as a Democrat here is 1) supercharge turnout in the ultra-liberal Greater Portland area and 2) don’t get blown out in the rural, inland parts of the state. Janet Mills did it twice, with great success. Sara Gideon failed at both. Graham Platner seems tailor made to pull it off.

Will it be easy? Fuck no. In spite of everything, Susan Collins’ offices are still very responsive and helpful to people who are having issues with things like the VA, Social Security, and Medicare. That means a lot in a place like Maine. She’s the chair of the appropriations committee, a powerful position in Washington, and one that she’s used to provide plenty of pork to Maine. That goes a long way here, too. And lots of people (not just independents) buy her moderate bullshit, even if astute observes know it’s a façade.

But Susan Collins has never faced an environment like this before. Trump II may just prove to be an egg she can’t crack, and Graham Platner may just prove to be the right candidate at the right time to finally topple the titan.

1. Preceded by Joe Scarborough (a former Republican congressman) showering effusive praise on Platner’s launch video.

2. Just look at the differences in likes on Platner’s and Jackson’s tweets about the event.

3. For example: Angie Craig in Minnesota, Chris Pappas in New Hampshire, Haley Stevens in Michigan.

4. Who, naturally, would go on to lose.

5. As Fetterman has shifted right, Lamb has shifted left in what is apparently the cold open of a primary challenge against Fetterman.

6. And leading candidate for Governor of California.

7. While writing this, Wood announced a town hall in Cape Elizabeth with Dr. Nirav Shah, the popular former Maine CDC director who led the state through the pandemic. Shah has openly stated he is considering running for governor of Maine last week. This is the most notable thing to have happened to Jordan Wood since he announced his campaign.

8. There may have been an unspoken racial component to this — Gideon is half Indian, and Maine remains the whitest state in the nation.

9. The 2014 campaign against Collins by future State Senator and Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (who was the only Democrat to file against Collins that year) barely merits a mention, as it was obvious that Collins was winning from the outset as Collins was one of only a small handful of Republican senators willing to work with President Obama at all.