ORONO, Maine — U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner pressed Democrats Wednesday to remain “radically empathetic” to conservative Mainers while pivoting from a primary toward a focus on ousting Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
“We cannot allow ourselves to write off people in our communities who have the same needs as us,” he told a crowd of at least 400 packed into an auditorium at the University of Maine in Orono. “I have no patience for blaming other working people for their suffering.”
Platner’s latest town hall came at a crucial moment in the primary, which polls suggest is lopsided in his favor against Gov. Janet Mills. After a series of sharp attack ads last month highlighting controversies that rocked Platner’s campaign in the fall, the term-limited governor currently has virtually no ads booked for the rest of the pivotal election year.
Platner, a Sullivan oyster farmer and military veteran whose insurgent campaign has now held 55 town halls, said supporters of President Donald Trump include neighbors, family members and friends “who have been lied to and in many ways taken advantage of.”
“These people are angry about the exact same thing we are — a political system they know is robbing them blind,” he said. “Truthfully for a lot of these folks, this is not what they voted for.”
The Mills campaign on Wednesday shrugged off a wide spending gap with Platner and Collins each having more than $200,000 in ads reserved, citing $2.6 million in first-quarter fundraising, a new policy platform and a handful of debates and forums to come.
“Janet Mills is the only candidate in this race with a record of winning two tough statewide races, delivering progress for Maine people, and standing up to Donald Trump,” campaign manager Chelsea Brossard said in a statement.
Mills supporters — and questioners at Wednesday’s town hall — still invoke Platner’s 2013 Reddit posts on sexual assault broadly denounced as victim-blaming. They note that Platner will face a battering from Republicans on the issue and with a Nazi-linked tattoo he covered in October if he’s the Democratic nominee.
At his event, Platner called for greater investments in domestic violence support centers and providers who help survivors. He also acknowledged that only after he met more female veterans did he come to understand there was a genuine sexual assault crisis in the military — which he says is now left without proper oversight under Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
As much as he roasted Hegseth and Trump, the message he hit the hardest was one of outreach to political polar opposites, moderates and those who may not trust him.
“We just keep showing up with positivity and hope, and a message of what’s actually broken and how we’re going to fix it,” he said.
Don Johns, 73, of Orland, wasn’t yet sure whether he’d vote for Platner. While he likes his ideas and is a supporter of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, who endorsed Platner early in his campaign last year, Johns questioned whether he had the ability to forge deals on Capitol Hill.
“But I heard a lot of things tonight that [show] he does display that skill set,” he said.
One questioner challenged Platner on how Mainers could trust he wouldn’t become a “professional politician.” The candidate pledged to hold town halls not just through the primary and general election, but after he’s in office if elected.
“I don’t trust politicians. That’s why I’m doing this,” he said. “I don’t want to just help build a political movement that’s going to be able to hold other people in power accountable, it’s also going to be able to hold me accountable.”
