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Graham Platner
American oyster farmer and political candidate (born 1984) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Graham Cunningham Platner (born September 1, 1984) is an American oyster farmer, harbormaster, and military veteran who is running in the Democratic primary in the 2026 United States Senate election in Maine, seeking to unseat the Republican incumbent Susan Collins.
Platner has been described as a progressive who is critical of the Democratic Party establishment. His candidacy has been notable for the outsized attention it has received.
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Early life
Platner was born on September 1, 1984, in Blue Hill, Maine.[1] He was raised in Sullivan, a coastal town near Acadia National Park, and in Ellsworth.[2] He is the elder of two sons born to restaurant owner Leslie Harlow and lawyer Bronson Platner.[2][3][4] His grandfather was the modernist architect Warren Platner.[5]
Platner attended the private Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut, and private John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor, Maine.[6][7] He earned the "most likely to start a revolution" yearbook superlative as a senior at John Bapst in 2003, appearing in the photo with a sign declaring "Free Kosova, Chechnya, Kashmir, Palestine, Kurdistan, Tibet".[7][8] When he was 18, he was quoted in the Bangor Daily News after protesting President George W. Bush and the Iraq War at an appearance by Bush at Bangor International Airport.[7]
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Career
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Military
Platner enlisted in the Marine Corps shortly after graduating from high school in 2003.[9] He attended the Marine Corps School of Infantry, then deployed to Iraq in 2005.[4] He served a total of eight years in the military, including three combat tours in Iraq, in areas including Ramadi and Fallujah.[10] Asked why he served in the Iraq War after protesting it, Platner said, "I thought I could do some good. And I wanted to play soldier. I might have read too much Hemingway."[11]
After four years in the military, Platner enrolled at George Washington University funded by the G.I. Bill.[9] Shortly after starting school, he enlisted in the Maryland Army National Guard and served an additional tour of duty in the war in Afghanistan.[12][13] He returned to Washington in 2011, resuming classes at GWU and working as a bartender at the Tune Inn on Capitol Hill.[14][15] From 2011 to 2016 he alternated between living in D.C. and military deployments, before withdrawing from GWU and returning to Maine in 2016 for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and other military-related injuries.[13][9][11][16]
In 2018, Platner returned to Kabul, Afghanistan, for about six months as a State Department security contractor with Constellis, the private military company formerly known as Blackwater, where he provided diplomatic security to the US ambassador to Afghanistan.[17][10][18][19] He returned to Maine the same year, saying he quickly grew more disillusioned with the military and what he called fraudulent funneling of taxpayer money to private defense companies.[12][9]
Oyster farming
While on leave from Afghanistan in 2018, Platner spent two weeks farming oysters with Jock Crothers, founder of Waukeag Neck Oyster Co., a small Frenchman Bay operation established in 2010 that supplies restaurants in Downeast Maine.[12][20] After resigning as a security contractor and returning to Maine later that year, he began working at the farm full-time.[18] He took over the company in 2020 and now owns and operates it with his wife, Amy, and another business partner.[11][21][16] He says the business does not make much money, but he is able to supplement his income with benefits he earns as a 100% disabled veteran.[11][14] Platner also runs a mooring and dive service.[22][23]
Local government and community involvement
Platner is Sullivan's harbormaster and the chair of Sullivan's planning board.[22][23][24] He has also been involved in grassroots organizing, leading political efforts with the Acadia Action activist group.[25]
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US Senate campaign
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Platner launched his Senate campaign on August 19, 2025, with a video produced by Morris Katz, a senior adviser and admaker for New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.[26][21] In the video, Platner highlights his military and working-class credentials, while criticizing his prospective opponent in harsh terms:[27]
I did four infantry tours in the Marine Corps and the Army. I'm not afraid to name an enemy. And the enemy is the oligarchy. It's the billionaires who pay for it, and the politicians who sell us out. And yeah, that means politicians like Susan Collins.
This video received 2.5 million views in its first 24 hours, sparking national media attention.[28][29] The campaign raised $1 million in its first nine days, and reported amassing over 2,700 volunteers.[30]
Senator Bernie Sanders endorsed Platner on August 30, ahead of a Fighting Oligarchy tour appearance in Portland with Platner and Maine gubernatorial candidate Troy Jackson.[31][32] The event had originally been scheduled to be held in an auditorium but had to be moved to a much larger arena due to high public interest.[33][34] Other endorsements include Ken Casey, frontman for the Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys, who endorsed Platner after inviting him onstage at a music festival in Boston.[35] Platner is also endorsed by several labor unions: the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, Maine State Nurses Association, and United Auto Workers.[36]
Platner's campaign reported that more than 800 people attended his first town hall meeting in Ellsworth, and that by September 2025[update] over 6,000 volunteers had joined since his August candidacy announcement.[37][38] Platner has said the volunteer network will also canvass against Maine's Question 1, a ballot measure to restrict absentee voting and require photo identification.[38]
On October 27, 2025, Platner's campaign manager Kevin Brown resigned, citing family reasons, and four days later finance director Ronald Holmes resigned as well.[39] His political director, Genevieve McDonald, also resigned in October, and in November his campaign treasurer, Victoria Perrone, was replaced by Ben Martello.[40]
Reddit comments and tattoo
In October 2025, various news outlets reported on Reddit posts by Platner from between 2013 and 2021 in which he called himself a "communist", declared that all cops are bastards, and agreed with a post calling rural white Americans "racist and stupid". In an interview with CNN, Platner said of those comments, "That was very much me fucking around the internet ... I don't think any of that is indicative of who I am today".[41] In a 2013 Reddit discussion about anti-rape underwear, Platner commented that people worried about assault should "take some responsibility for themselves and not get so fucked up they wind up having sex with someone they don't mean to".[42] He also referenced political violence in multiple posts; in 2018, he wrote: "Fight until you get tired of fighting with words and then fight with signs, and fists, and guns if need be." Platner also wrote that "an armed working class is a requirement for economic justice" and urged readers to "Get Armed, Get Organized. The Other Side Sure As Hell Is."[41][43] He has said that many of the comments do not represent his current political beliefs, and that they were the product of disillusionment after his military discharge and struggles with PTSD.[44][45]
Collins called Platner's internet history "terrible" and "offensive".[46] Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said that while he did not approve of Platner's comments, he did not consider them "disqualifying".[47]
In an interview on Pod Save America, Platner addressed claims that a skull-and-bones tattoo on his chest resembles the Totenkopf, a symbol worn by the Nazi Schutzstaffel paramilitary organization. Platner said that he and some other Marines got the tattoo while on leave in Croatia in 2007, not knowing its symbolism.[48] While acknowledging the resemblance, he stated he had not been aware of it until reporters and political operatives from DC contacted him during his campaign. He said he had recently gotten it covered up.[49][50] An unnamed acquaintance of Platner's has claimed that Platner was aware that the tattoo was a Nazi symbol.[51][52] Maine Governor Janet Mills, one of Platner's opponents in the Democratic primary, described the tattoo as "abhorrent". She stated, "I obviously vehemently disagree with the things he's been quoted as saying and doing" but that it was "up to the people" to decide whether he should continue in the Senate race.[53]
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Political views
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Platner has been characterized as a populist and a progressive.[12][21][27] He has received attention for focusing on economic issues facing working-class Americans, and for being willing to criticize the Democratic Party establishment.[54] His platform includes focusing on housing affordability, universal healthcare through Medicare for All, and ending US involvement in overseas wars.[15][31][22]
Platner has explicitly declined to be identified as progressive or liberal, saying, "I think it's silly that thinking people deserve health care, that makes you some kind of lefty. But I do think those working-class policies are necessary."[15][26] He has highlighted his support for gun rights as a point where he differs from mainstream liberals,[21] and said that many of his friends and colleagues voted for Donald Trump.[26] In The American Prospect, Austin Ahlman called Platner part of "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".[29] Platner has cited Senator Bernie Sanders as a political influence.[15] He has also credited Frances Perkins, who served as Secretary of Labor under Franklin D. Roosevelt, and labor organizer Jane McAlevey as inspirations.[25][16]
Platner has criticized what he calls "the oligarchy", an economic and political system controlled by and benefiting the ultra-wealthy at the expense of everyone else. He advocates for higher taxes on billionaires and large corporations, and more support for the working class.[12][55] At a Labor Day rally headlined by Sanders, Platner said, "We do not live in a system that is broken. We live in a system that is functioning exactly as it's intended. We live in a system that has been built by the political class to enrich and support billionaires on the backs of working people."[55]
Platner has called the Gaza genocide "the ultimate moral test of our time", and has strongly criticized the Democratic Party establishment for not doing enough to counter Trump administration policies such as mass deportation and support for Israel's war in Gaza.[12][9][56][57] He has criticized the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC, and pledged not to take campaign contributions from it "or any group that supports the genocide in Gaza".[58][27] Republicans and conservative outlets[59] have called Platner "Maine's Mamdani", referencing the democratic socialist mayor-elect of New York City, and have criticized Platner's outspoken criticism of Israel and its actions in Gaza. Platner called the comments "absurd".[60]
Platner credits his military experience with forming his populist politics.[12] He has called US "military adventurism" "a mechanism of moving taxpayer dollars into the private bank accounts of defense companies, all on the backs of frankly working-class men and women, and on the backs of the people living in societies that we took the wars to".[12] Platner stated that his veterans' healthcare and disability benefits have enabled him to run his small business, and argues that all Americans should have access to increased social welfare regardless of military service.[32] He has a more moderate stance on gun regulation than some Democrats, recognizing the importance of firearms in Maine's hunting and rural communities. When asked about his position on gun control after the Annunciation Catholic Church shooting, he expressed support for red flag laws, provided they are "written in such a way that they don't impede the ability of legal gun owners to have access to their firearms".[60] Platner reportedly provided firearms instruction in the past for the Maine chapter of the Socialist Rifle Association.[6]
Asked about his stance on LGBTQ rights, Platner said, "I stand right in the fucking way of anyone who's going to try to come after the freedoms of the LGBTQIA+ community."[61]
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Personal life
Platner lives in Sullivan, Maine.[23] He married his wife, Amy Gertner, in the autumn of 2024.[4] Gertner was an elementary and middle school art teacher until 2024, when she became the business manager for Waukeag Neck Oyster Co.[4][16] Platner is a competitive pistol shooter and firearms instructor.[21] Much of Platner's extended family is Jewish,[62] and his stepbrother lives in Jerusalem.[63]
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References
External links
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