Graham Platner

When I drive my daughter to school every day, I pass dozens of platinum yard signs that have been out every day for months.

And between what the national narrative is, which is...

typically much more negative.

This is not good for the Graham Platt campaign.

So I think there are very legitimate questions about his past that a lot of Maine Democrats have been asking.

But he is also just a type of guy that is very familiar in Maine.

And I think a lot of people kind of felt like they could connect with him, could relate with him, even if they didn't know exactly who he is.

And I think he also did a really effective job of kind of weaponizing this—

chip on his shoulder that Maine has about how it's viewed by the rest of the world.

There's this concept of you're either a Mainer or you're from away.

You have lifted me up.

You have had my back.

This is the state that raised me, and this is the state that saved me.

And he is coded as extremely Maine.

And he was able to kind of use that to say all these attacks from the New York Times or whatever outside world, don't listen to them.

That's people from away trying to tell us in Maine what to do.

I think a lot of folks at the national level misunderstand the reason they keep getting everything wrong.

is they think this is a race about me.

But it isn't.

This is a race about us.