Maine's Populist Senate Candidate Thinks We Are in a New Gilded Age

[Passages]

Graham Platner’s challenge to Susan Collins and the Democratic establishment could remake a bruised and aimless Democratic coalition.

by Austin Ahlman August 26, 2025

Veteran, oysterman, and first-time political candidate Graham Platner’s U.S. Senate campaign against Maine Republican Susan Collins kicked off last week to an impressively strong reception. His launch video has racked up millions of views across social media platforms. He has embarked on a media blitz that has run the gamut from independent progressive media outlets to bookings on CNN, and his campaign has boasted recruiting over 300 new volunteers a day since his announcement. He plans to further capitalize on that momentum with a Labor Day rally with Bernie Sanders in Portland.

In an interview with the Prospect, Platner argued that the energy around his candidacy is the latest indicator of a growing hunger for new approaches from a Democratic coalition that is stuck in the wilderness after being routed by Trump last November. “Working-class people in this country feel like they’re not being represented … both by policy and by the structure of our system,” he said. “The only way we’re going to get that is by sending up fighters from the working class who are willing to fight for the working class. And I’m getting the feeling from the response to our announcement that I was not the only one who felt that way.”

Platner joins a growing wave of populist Senate candidates who are challenging modern understandings of political labels by forefronting anti-establishment, anti-corporate, and distinctly localist politics and policies. Fellow travelers include Dan Osborn, running for Senate against Pete Ricketts in Nebraska, whose insurgent independent bid against Ricketts’s Republican colleague Deb Fischer last year saw him overperform Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris by 14 points overall and by more in ultra-red rural areas across the state, and Nathan Sage, who is mounting a Senate bid for the Democratic nomination in Iowa on a similar platform.

SNIP
In Maine, the only state being contested in the Senate won by Kamala Harris last year, Collins has seen her approval rating fall to new lows after casting the deciding vote to advance the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cut taxes on the wealthy and funded it in part with cuts to Medicaid and food assistance.
https://prospect.org/politics/2025-08-26-maines-populist-senate-candidate-graham-platner-new-gilded-age/

[Autumn]

1. Interesting. He's right and It's not the middle class that's not being represented

It's the working class the lower working class, the bottom of the lower middle class.
The poor, the poor that never get mentioned by the politicians because the word poor doesn't exist to them. It's a dirty word they would rather not use.

“Working-class people in this country feel like they’re not being … both by policy and by the structure of our system,”

yep, there it is. that's why people don't bother.

[Passages]

2. When I listen to people who speak at their town halls, I learn a great deal about why we have

lost so many seats across the country.

I am encouraged by candidates like this gentleman.

[mikeysnot]

3. MAGA

[Cloudhopper]

4. Not that fancy...

FAFO

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