Graham Platner, a 40 -year -old Army and Marine veteran who served four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, launched his campaign for the Senate in Maine on Tuesday, joining a growing democratic primary field that seeks to face Republican Senator Susan Collins.
Platner, a oyster farmer who was born and grew up in Sullivan, Maine, will run on a universal medical care platform, housing affordability and the participation of the United States in foreign wars.
“I feel the obligation to protect this place and protect people in it,” Platner said in an interview.
Platner joins a growing Democratic primary field that presents Jordan Wood, a former head of former representative Katie Porter, Democrat of California, and David Costello, who challenged the independent senator Angus King last year.
The Democratic Governor Janet Mills has said that she is considering entering the contest, while the representative Jared Golden, D-MAINE, has chosen not to join the cousins in what, on paper, it might seem the best opportunity of the Democrats to turn a seat in the Senate in 2026. Collins is the only Republican senator that represents a Kamala Harris state held in the last presidential election.
But she has proven to be a hard opponent in Blue Maine. In his last campaign, in 2020, he beat Democratic opponent Sarah Gideon for more than 8 percentage points, even when Donald Trump lost Maine for more than 9 points.
Republicans have a majority of 53-47 in the Senate, which means that the Democrats would need to turn four seats in the intermediate works of 2026 to take the majority.
Platner said his experience in the army helped shape his political perspective while preparing his campaign.
“When I joined Marines, I joined because I really believed in the American project,” he said. “I wanted to fight for something I loved and that I thought it was good in Iraq and Afghanistan. I observed both failed policies, failed strategies, failed tactics that were used again and again.”
“There is a point where you have to start asking what the point of this is,” he added. “Why are you doing this? And when I returned as a security contractor in 2018, what I began to realize is that I was only seeing large amounts of money from the taxpayers who put themselves in the pockets of the defense contractors, of the security contractors, of this apparatus that almost seemed simply to take the money of the taxpayers and put it in the private bank account of someone. broad, and you start seeing the same exactly. “
Platner is trying to connect with working class voters who have emigrated to the Republican party in recent cycles. He pointed to Golden, Senator Bernie Sanders, I-VT., And Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y., as figures that offer hope for the Democratic Party at the national level and in his state.
“If we focus mainly on fighting for working class values, fighting for policies that help people of working class, collecting much of the power that has been consolidated in the type of higher establishment class policy, I think that if you stick to those things, you can win,” said Platner. “And being dragged to many of these minor cultural warfares is not remotely the answer.”
“I do not identify only with the most left parts of the game. People like Jared Golden are doing an excellent job. That’s why he has been able to cling to a democratic seat in a Trump district,” said Platner.
In his launch video, Platner excorted “multimillionaires and corrupt politicians who benefit and destroy our environment, lead our families to poverty and crush the middle class”, saying that their military experience did not fear not to “name an enemy, and the enemy is the oligarchy.”
“This false farce of the Deliberations and Moderation of Collins does not deceive me,” he said.
