ME-SEN: 'A Slow-Rolling Disaster': Inside the Implosion of the Platner Campaign

[RandySF]

The initial headhunters, Dan Moraff and Leanne Fan, and then a third out-of-state operative they called up to Maine — Morris Katz — told Mr. Platner he was “the one,” a “hero of the movement,” “a historical figure” who could be “leading a revolution,” according to half a dozen people with knowledge of their conversations.

But a clutch of people who cared about Mr. Platner were telling him something else. They worried about his mental health, amid his ongoing efforts to heal from post-traumatic stress disorder after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. They feared this trio of out-of-state operatives was a dangerous combination of inexperienced and overconfident. The worst-case scenario, they thought, wasn’t running for Senate and losing — it was destroying the life he worked hard to build.

Until recently, Mr. Platner had seemed to prove the worriers wrong. His campaign was pumping out viral videos and broadcasting scenes from crowded town halls. He easily pushed a sitting governor out of the Democratic primary as voters embraced his message of economic populism and overlooked his checkered past. Progressives across the country heralded him as a new left-wing hero and saw him as their best opportunity to defeat Senator Susan Collins, a Republican, in a race that could decide control of the Senate.

But behind the scenes, his campaign was messy, disorganized and haphazardly run. Mr. Platner did not disclose explosive, politically damaging secrets to key members of his team. And he was guarded by an insular and zealously protective inner circle of advisers who did not always seem to grasp the seriousness — or strangeness — of what quickly became a steady drip of scandal, according to party strategists, Democratic officials and former staff members.




https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/08/us/politics/graham-platner-campaign-implosion-maine.html