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Adrian Cole is a writer and editor living on Chebeague Island. He is the co-host of Gramerica, a podcast on the U.S. Senate race of Graham Platner.
Apart from some more or less universal aspects of campaigning in a (more or less) democratic environment, one would think that a recent foreign election would have nothing to say about Maine’s senatorial race.
But listening to the coverage of Hungary’s dramatic ousting of its authoritarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, by Peter Magyar, I was struck by parallels with Graham Platner’s campaign for U.S. Senate.
I think Platner, who following Gov. Janet Mills’ departure from the race, now stands as the only credible Democratic candidate, shares several commonalities with Magyar and his campaign — most notably the laser focus on economic justice, weaponization of voter frustration, and the building of power.
Democratic American candidates across the ballot cannot help but take a second look at Hungary. Peter Magyar (a name that literally means Peter “Hungarian”) trounced his authoritarian opponent, Orban, handing a major victory not just to the people of Hungary — who have become by many measures, poorer and less free in the last 16 years — but to anti-authoritarians everywhere.
To be sure, Magyar and Platner are as different as they are similar. Magyar is socially conservative, beginning his political career in the same party (Fidesz) as Viktor Orban, and only breaking with him a few years ago, and emerging as the opposition leader and head of the Tisza party in 2024. He has been reticent on issues like LGBTQ rights, and he has studiously avoided weighing in on the fate of Ukraine (Orban had been a staunch ally of Vladimir Putin) although it appears that he will reverse Hungary’s veto over the $90 billion loan earmarked for Kiev.
Another is that they both appeal to the concept of a “regular” citizen; Platner, by virtue of his home-spun origin story as a working oysterman born and raised on the coast of Maine. Magyar is slightly less of a working everyman (he’s a lawyer) but his last name must lend him some authenticity.
Both candidates have weathered scandals, Platner is associated with “shit posting” on Reddit for years, in terms that were offensive to multiple groups of people, and having what appeared to be a Nazi tattoo, whose significance he claims he was unaware of. Magyar’s involve allegations of spousal abuse, and political high jinks. Both candidates seem to have adopted successful brazening-it-out strategies, and have flourished notwithstanding these vulnerabilities.
But perhaps the most significant areas of commonality between the two are their building of a big tent movement. Harnessing widespread voter discontent with the economic system, they have both been successful at attracting the attention of voters beyond their traditional bases. It is Magyar’s economic progressivism, not his social platform that allowed him to build a broad coalition of voters.
This is a key Platner strategy. He has succeeded in harmonizing with the voters’ anger at a system that does not benefit them — the affordability crisis. He has been able to attract those who feel economically sidelined, which could allow him to poach considerable voters from the GOP. And he does this energetically, perhaps even inspirationally.
The challenge for Platner will be to attract sufficient independents and Republicans to make inroads into, for example, Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, which trends conservative, and has voted for Donald Trump at the presidential level in the last three elections — and for Sen. Susan Collins repeatedly.
Both campaigned vigorously in the countryside. Platner is barnstorming the state with an intent to hit every town, and sometimes doing five to six events daily. In many of these events he draws significant crowds.
Magyar faced much harder odds, being shut out of state media by Orban, one of whose authoritarian tactics was state media capture. By necessity, then, Magyar toured the country, sometimes walking between villages, to reach small numbers of people who had access only to Orban’s televised propaganda. Both candidates bet long on accessibility.
The focus of both campaigns, in other words, has been on building a movement around challenging the status quo. Platner’s mantra thus far has been “build power,” and his method has been organizing, showing up, and this is clearly working for him judging by pretty much all campaign metrics. This worked for Magyar: Hungary saw its highest voter turnout for this election since the end of communism in 1989.
If Platner is intent on remaking the Democratic Party as the “party of the people” there is, for sure, a long way to go. But if we are to extract lessons from Hungary, and even notwithstanding Tip O’Neill’s “all politics is local” riff, he may well be on the right path.