{"id":14224,"date":"2025-10-09T08:46:47","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T08:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/graham-platner-has-a-growing-senate-fan-club\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T08:46:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T08:46:47","slug":"graham-platner-has-a-growing-senate-fan-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/graham-platner-has-a-growing-senate-fan-club\/","title":{"rendered":"Graham Platner has a growing Senate fan club"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Senate Democrats are warming up to an upstart oyster farmer<\/a> in the crucial Maine Senate race. Now they\u2019ll have to decide if they are willing to snub their party\u2019s dream recruit to support him.<\/p>\n

So far, Graham Platner only has one public endorsement from a sitting senator, Vermont independent Bernie Sanders. But more than a half-dozen Democratic senators sang his praises in interviews this week, even as Minority Leader Chuck Schumer grows closer to landing his top recruiting target to run against Sen. Susan Collins \u2014 not Platner, but Gov. Janet Mills.<\/p>\n

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), who praised Platner in a recent X post<\/a>, said in an interview that he has written Platner\u2019s campaign a check. He\u2019s also showing Platner\u2019s viral social media videos to colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really appreciate people who are good communicators,\u201d Heinrich said. \u201cGraham is somebody who can go anywhere in Maine and genuinely connect with people. We need more candidates like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other Senate Democrats, including Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, have privately spoken to Platner.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s off to a really strong start and has a wonderfully appealing local background and story,\u201d said Whitehouse.<\/p>\n

The question many of them are avoiding for the time being is whether Platner, a 41-year-old Marine Corps and Army veteran who has built undeniable grassroots buzz, is the better choice to take on Collins than Mills, the 77-year-old two-term governor who was in elected office when Platner was born.<\/p>\n

Mills has said she is \u201cseriously considering\u201d a run and has interviewed potential campaign managers<\/a>. She expects to make a formal announcement by next month, with Democrats widely expecting her to jump in.<\/p>\n

Whitehouse, for instance, called Platner a \u201cqualified candidate\u201d but demurred when asked if Platner was more formidable than Mills, saying he would not \u201cstep into that conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Maine race is at the heart of Democrats\u2019 uphill path back to the Senate majority, needing to flip a net of four seats in next year\u2019s midterms. Democrats have perennially tried to oust Collins, the only blue-state Senate Republican left, and fallen short, including in a contentious 2020 race where they were confident they had her beat.<\/p>\n

But the 2026 contest is also set to be another high-profile test of where the power lies within Democrats\u2019 competing factions, with the popular, establishment-aligned Mills facing off with Platner, who has earned fans on the left with his populist message, and a host of other contenders.<\/p>\n

Early indications are that Platner is a legitimate contender. He has drawn large crowds and an enthusiastic online response that has helped fuel his campaign, which announced Wednesday that it has raised $4 million since its launch, with nearly $1 million raised in the past week.<\/p>\n

Sanders, who has split with Schumer in a number of primaries, said he believed Platner \u201cstands an excellent chance to beat Senator Collins.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a growing understanding that we need candidates from the working class who understand what working families are going through, who are prepared to stand up to the billionaire class and fight for an agenda that works for all, not just the people on top,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mills has plenty of fans inside the Senate Democratic Caucus, who view her entrance into the Senate race as a game-changing recruiting coup on the same level as netting Sherrod Brown\u2019s entry in Ohio or Roy Cooper in North Carolina. National Democrats believe Mills is the strongest candidate, given her history of winning statewide. But unlike Brown or Cooper, Mills\u2019 expected candidacy isn\u2019t clearing the primary field at this point.<\/p>\n

Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, hasn’t endorsed in the race but said in a brief interview Wednesday that he believes Mills will be a strong candidate. And Schumer has made no secret that he wants Mills to run against Collins.<\/p>\n

He and other top party leaders believe Mills\u2019 name recognition and popularity in Maine would give her a better chance against Collins, who has proven difficult to beat despite being a prime target for Democrats for years. Mills won her last race by roughly 13 percentage points.<\/p>\n

Neither Schumer nor Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the Senate Democratic campaign chair, has reached out to Platner, according to a person granted anonymity to describe private conversations. Platner, for his part, has said he won\u2019t support Schumer for party leader if he wins the election.<\/p>\n

Maine hasn\u2019t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988, the last time former Majority Leader George Mitchell ran. The state\u2019s other sitting senator, Angus King, is an independent who, like Sanders, caucuses with Democrats.<\/p>\n

King said Wednesday that his general practice is not to campaign against colleagues, and he expects to stick with that next year \u2014 including not endorsing in the primary.<\/p>\n

Platner has caught the attention, though, of two key groups within the Senate Democratic Caucus \u2014 younger members and progressives. Still, several in those cadres say that while his message has put him on their radar, they\u2019re stopping short of backing him over a potential Mills candidacy for the time being.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen a bunch of his stuff, and it\u2019s killer,\u201d said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), adding that Platner \u201cseems pretty impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

But asked if Platner was being overlooked by party leaders, Murphy said only that he looks forward to meeting the candidate and learning more about him.<\/p>\n

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) declined to discuss private discussions about the Maine race but offered support for candidates like Platner jumping into the fray.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to see new people enter the race for the Senate,\u201d she said, \u201cparticularly those who have a strong voice they\u2019re willing to use on behalf of people who are often ignored in the U.S. Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate Democrats are warming up to an upstart oyster farmer in the crucial Maine Senate race. Now they\u2019ll have to decide if they are willing to snub their party\u2019s dream recruit to support him. So far, Graham Platner only has one public endorsement from a sitting senator, Vermont independent Bernie Sanders. But more than a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}