Graham Platner

They had some money left over.

They had some money left over.

An immense amount of money was spent on negative ads about Susan Collins.

It didn't do anything.

And honestly, living in the part of Maine I live in, which is rural eastern Maine, a lot of the negative ads about Sarah Gideon also didn't change anything.

It was really more about like a feeling on the ground.

People couldn't really connect with –

with the Democratic candidate, primarily because I think DC came in and ran the race like an old school DC race, which is not gonna win against Susan Collins.

And Collins was a known entity.

And at that point, people could still sort of frame her as this sort of moderate.

Roe had not yet been overturned, which is really important to remember.

And I think that that to me just shows that it's not really about the ads or even the money spent.

There's another – there's an X factor in there about connecting with people and about really being able to make people think that you are –

or not think, but letting people engage with you directly to show that you are like authentic.

And which is why I, I mean, we hold, we've held 40 town halls and we're going to hold 20 more before the primary.

And we're going to hold a bunch more after that, like making myself accessible

in a way that isn't controlled.

Like we don't screen questions at these things.

People just come and I literally pick on folks who raise their hands.

Drives the comms team insane.