Two major polls of the Maine Senate race dropped this week, and they told the same story: The race is incredibly close, and Democrat Graham Platner has real work to do among the working class. He’s running an aggressively left-populist, antiestablishment campaign targeting the billionaire class—and boasts lots of blue-collar appeal—but GOP Senator Susan Collins is way ahead among those voters. Why?
The surveys—one from The New York Times and the other from Fox News—offer good and bad news for Platner. But they’re worrying some Democrats because a loss here deeply complicates the path to Senate control. Without Maine—which voted against Donald Trump by seven points in 2024—Democrats probably must win four out of five seats in Ohio, Texas, Alaska, Iowa, and North Carolina. Trump won all five states—most by lopsided margins—and now Democrats lead in the last but are tied or a bit behind in the others.
The Times survey has Platner up two among likely voters overall, 49–47, and the Fox poll has Collins up three, 50–47. It’s a dead heat—it’s winnable, but he should probably be leading by more given the state’s Democratic lean, which is being outweighed by the brutal press he’s sustained over his Nazi-like tattoo and alleged violence against women.
But note this: In the Times poll, Platner trails among voters without a college degree, a proxy for the working class, by 37–58. In the Fox poll, that’s 41–56. What’s driving this? One possibility: The Times poll has working-class voters saying Platner has “good character” by 37–57 and “the right kind of moral values” by 36–57.
On the plus side, Platner leads in the Times survey among women by 52–44, among young people by 59–32, and among college-educated voters by 66–32. But Platner’s candidacy is all about his blue-collar aura: He’s a tattooed oyster farmer who speaks openly—in that deep, gravelly voice—about his trauma from serving in combat. Though his backstory is somewhat more privileged (his father is an Ivy League graduate and lawyer), he speaks in a left-populist idiom that seeks to connect with working people’s struggles. So his numbers among them are concerning.
Here’s the upshot: This race is awfully close, and importantly, Platner is running behind the Democratic Party as a whole in Maine. Voters there want a Democratic Senate by 54–42, so his 49 percent support lags that. By contrast, in Times polling, all the Democrats in other red states—Ohio, Texas, Alaska, Iowa, North Carolina—are outrunning their party.
I talked about all this with Rebecca Katz, a top Platner adviser. Asked about his numbers with working-class voters, Katz noted that the race has been heavily nationalized, leading them to initially fall into their familiar pattern of opposition to Democrats. Many of these voters, Katz said, have been introduced to Platner via a massive barrage of negative ads and some very bad news cycles.
Katz said the political landscape in Maine—a largely rural state where retail campaigning will really matter—provides Platner with a unique opportunity to grow among that demographic. She noted that he’s already done over 60 town halls in rural areas, and pointed to an intriguing dynamic: People in these areas are coming to listen.
“They are curious about him,” Katz told me, noting that Graham is already somewhat outperforming losing 2020 Senate candidate Sara Gideon among working people.
If one criticism of Democrats is that they don’t show up and talk to rural and working- class voters, well, Platner is certainly doing that. The theory seems to be that despite his bad stories, Platner is compelling enough to open the door to getting an audience with these constituencies, and then to reach them in a fresh way.
“Graham is a different kind of candidate,” Katz said. “He grew up in a rural community. He’s one of the only candidates running who’s actually worked with his hands. He will continue to connect with more rural and conservative voters.”
Asked to respond to the oft-heard argument that seeking working-class voters with Platner’s type of leftist politics is a chimera, Katz insisted this doesn’t jibe with what they’re seeing at town halls in working-class and rural areas.
“Mainers are focused on their cost of living, health care, corruption, and whether anyone in Washington is actually fighting for working people,” said Katz, a founding partner of Fight Agency, the firm that does Platner’s media and strategy, along with rising progressive strategist Morris Katz (no relation), who helped recruit Platner.
In this understanding, Platner’s appeal can get these voters to at least listen to his agenda of breaking billionaire control over elections, Medicare for All, a more progressive tax system for small businesses and corporations alike, a billionaire minimum tax, and protecting and expanding social welfare programs. That agenda is somewhat to the left of many mainstream Democrats. But it’s aimed squarely at what’s really driving voter concerns, Katz notes, which matters more than the details, and Platner is the one to make that case.
“There are people coming who are not into politics but are intrigued by Graham,” Katz said of the town halls. “He’s an outsider.”
Asked to respond to Platner’s struggles with working people, Adam Green, the head of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee—an early booster of Platner’s candidacy—acknowledged that he has more work to do among them. But he cast this as an opportunity. “Most working-class people who are low-propensity voters don’t know him yet,” Green said. “But once they do, he’s an obvious fit for them.”
Katz, for her part, said other big dynamics here deserve attention: This is likely to be a change election amid deep anger at establishment politicians. The Times poll finds 61 percent of Maine voters say the country is on the wrong track, 60 percent disapprove of Trump, large percentages say Collins is too old to serve, and Democrats hold a nearly 20-point enthusiasm edge.
“The big question of this race is whether or not voters are willing to vote for change,” Katz said.
The political graveyards are full of men—mostly men—who boasted of the right kind of populist and biographical appeal to reverse Democratic losses among working people. Indeed, different factions in the party are already battling over the meaning of Platner’s candidacy, with progressives and socialists insisting it will show their agenda to be broadly popular and moderates insisting that chasing working-class voters with that sort of leftism is a fool’s errand.
But, unsatsfyingly, the outcome is unlikely to turn on Platner’s precise policy prescriptions or his exact ideological leanings. It will more likely be decided on whether Collins’s special hold on the Maine electorate is spent, particularly after her vote for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the overturning of Roe v. Wade; whether Trump’s unpopularity will be enough to nudge voters to risk a different kind of challenger; whether Platner’s able to reach just enough persuadable voters to allay concerns about his past conduct; and a thousand other intangibles involving turnout and last-minute voter decisions.
Ultimately, it may all turn on good old-fashioned shoe-leather politicking. And whatever you think of Platner, one thing that can’t be denied is this: He’s certainly willing to work hard enough to win.
