Graham Platner was voted “Most Likely to Start a Revolution” by his high school peers in 2003, but he made no political waves until this past week.
That was when the 40-year-old oyster farmer and Marine veteran announced Tuesday his bid to join the Democratic field hoping to unseat U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in 2026. The launch video featuring Platner standing at the helm of a boat, doing kettlebell swings and criticizing billionaires in stark language has gotten millions of views on social media sites.
His rise from harbor master and planning board chair in the Hancock County town of Sullivan to a buzzy insurgent candidate in one of the biggest races on next year’s Senate map happened over about a month. It was part of a union effort to find a Democrat who can appeal to working-class voters the party has shed over the past decade.
In July, Platner spoke with Jason Shedlock, the president of the Maine State Building & Construction Trades Council, via Zoom to talk about the potential run while working on his oyster boat.
“It was striking to me,” Shedlock said. “It wasn’t scripted. It was just him sharing his vision.”
In an interview, Platner said running “was not on my plate” until labor and community groups contacted him about a month ago. Labor groups connected him to the Fight Agency, whose consultants have gained attention for their work with New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani as well as U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.
His frustration with the mainstream of both parties and his use of unfiltered language is so far picking up steam on social media. For example, Platner has called Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as “genocide,” a term that few Democrats in Congress have used. He criticized his own party for sending dire fundraising messages but not fighting President Donald Trump hard enough.
His campaign said Friday it raised more than $400,000 in its first few days and is drawing in 300 volunteers per day. Platner has also challenged Gov. Janet Mills, whom national Democrats are trying to get to run against Collins, by saying the party needs to break from the same “old, tired playbook.”
Collins’ campaign has responded to Platner so far by noting her support for Israel and AIPAC, a group that Platner has called weird. In a recent Fox News interview, Maine Republican Party Executive Director Jason Savage called the candidate “Maine’s Mamdani.”
“I doubt Zohran spends his weekends at gun ranges like I do,” Platner responded. “Republicans are clearly trying to pigeonhole me, and I find the whole thing pretty laughable.”
While mentioning universal health care and affordable housing among his platform’s various issues, he said he would mostly focus on two things if elected — support a constitutional amendment to ban billionaires from “buying elections” under the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and build an economy that supports the “vast majority of Americans.”
Platner has a long way to go in the race. Maine has never elected someone with such thin political experience to the Senate. Mills could get in at any time and swamp the competition. Collins is one of the most decorated electoral politicians in Maine history. She comfortably won a 2020 race that saw a record-smashing $200 million spent on both sides.
There are several other figures to Collins’ right and left who are in the race. The most active by far has been former Capitol Hill operative Jordan Wood of Bristol, who was chief of staff to former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, D-California. His campaign said it has raised $2 million to date. In a statement, Wood criticized Platner by saying “no one from D.C. or New York recruited me.”
“That’s not how Mainers choose our leaders,” he said.
Platner’s yearbook superlative at John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor shows him holding up a sign that said Palestine, Tibet and other regions of the world should be free. He was quoted in the Bangor Daily News as an 18-year-old protesting then-President George W. Bush over his Iraq policies when Bush spoke at the Bangor airport in 2002.
“I started yelling, ‘Don’t attack Iraq. If our best generals tell us not to go to war, why should we,'” he said after being kicked out of the event. “Bush looked right at me and people started yelling for me to shut up, but he saw me.”
Friends who attended John Bapst with Platner said he has stayed true to that spirit. Alex Desmond, one of those friends who now lives in Glenburn, said he and others were surprised at Platner’s Senate bid but know of his “deep love for America.”
“He’s certainly a freethinker and independent spirit,” Desmond said. “And you’d be hard-pressed to fit him into most typical political boxes.”