Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner recently argued his party should have applied more pressure to holdouts who sank key parts of former President Joe Biden’s agenda.
The progressive oyster farmer from Sullivan has come from nowhere to be a potent candidate in a primary with Gov. Janet Mills, who is backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York. The primary is putting stark Democratic divides on display. It holds big stakes with the winner entering a major 2026 race with Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
The Bangor Daily News obtained audio of Platner’s remarks at a party event this month in Auburn. They are notable because he referenced strong-arm tactics, including Department of Justice investigations, to argue that party leaders should have leveraged their power more to get holdouts to vote their way.
He was referencing former Sens. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona, two centrist members who played central roles in blocking passage of Biden’s massive “Build Back Better” tax, health care and energy bill between 2021 and 2022. The end result was the smaller Inflation Reduction Act that was largely negotiated by Manchin.
If this had happened under President Lyndon B. Johnson, those senators would have been threatened with “DOJ investigations,” Platner said in Auburn, adding that politicians of his era in the 1960s would have applied pressure to holdouts that never came under Schumer.
The candidate attributed that to top Democrats and donors not wanting the bill to pass, even though Schumer was a vocal supporter of what would have been Biden’s signature measure.
“If we had, I would say, senators or political leadership that felt the need to impose will to move things forward, we could have seen a different outcome,” Platner said.
A Platner spokesperson answered questions about the candidate’s remarks by noting his consistent comments about Democrats not fighting hard enough to pass their agenda and saying he wants a return to New Deal-era postures in which the party used political power to transform institutions.
“He was illustrating the point that Democrats these days too often throw up their hands and give up when they run into resistance — he was not advocating for using the DOJ to put pressure on members of Congress,” the campaign said.
Platner launched into this discussion while highlighting differences with Mills over what he called “theories of power.” Mills has generally had a restraining effect on her party in her seven years as governor but redoubled a campaign call for universal health care that she worked into her recent State of the State address.
The 78-year-old has leaned into her battles with Trump during her Senate campaign that launched in October, nearly two months after Platner jumped in. The 41-year-old newcomer outraised Mills and Collins during the final three months of 2025. He is now the frontrunner in betting markets to win the Democratic nomination.
Platner has drawn massive crowds both before and after his campaign was rocked in October by resurfaced Reddit posts and a tattoo of a Nazi symbol that he later covered. He has also drawn attention in conservative media for saying politicians who oppose Medicare for all should be followed around and protested.
Following his Auburn remarks invoking Johnson, Platner was questioned by a woman who wondered if he was saying Democrats should copy the strong-arm tactics of the Republican president.
“It’s not mimicking Donald Trump,” he answered. “I think it’s more looking at what’s happening now and taking a lesson from it, which is that power is derived from doing things.”