ICYMI: In interviews Platner has been open about his post-combat struggles. Now he’s talking about it more frequently at his heavily attended town halls. It seems to be making his campaign more resilient, his supporters more devoted. Listen 🎧📻

Worth your time to read this Laura Loomer piece. Includes a peek at the pay-to-play influencer machine Laura Loomer’s Endless Payback www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Wrote about the Dems’ shutdown backlash against Sen. Angus King and others. One of the clearest examples yet that they’re experiencing a tea party-like moment — with the ACA helping it along. www.mainepublic.org/politics/202...

The longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history is over. But with little to show for it, the mostly Democratic politicians who ended the standoff now face intense backlash:

Platner has a new campaign manager. A local guy. Never done it before. www.mainepublic.org/politics/202...

Been to several of these now. The stump varies on delivery — he’s ditched the notes and pretty much riffs — but essentially the same message. What I noticed tonight, though, is the questions are getting tougher

Graham Platner at the Chocolate Church in Bath. Full house. Seats 300. Begins by calling on attendees to support local food banks amid shutdown and suspension of SNAP assistance.

Jared Golden made the announcement in a lengthy column published in the Bangor Daily News in which he lamented the increasing hostility in the nation's politics and threats against him and his family:

Gun rights groups have long held supremacy over Maine’s gun laws. The Lewiston mass shooting brought new scrutiny. Two years later, voters approved a red flag law that supporters say could have prevented the tragedy. www.mainepublic.org/politics/202...

In Sept, Graham Platner said the response to his campaign has been "surreal." Reality has arrived over the past week. Now comes a test of Maine Democratic primary voters' risk aversion. buff.ly/0aayG5f

For nearly two months, Graham Platner’s bid for the U.S. Senate was marked by momentum and bravado as the political newcomer drew big crowds to his town halls and he channeled Democratic voters’ hopes for a newer, brasher kind of candidate:

Really interesting pollster note in the UNH survey. Tries to account for Mills performance v Platner with declining approval. Her approval was +4 in August before she got in the race but flirting with it. It dropped to -12 once she got in. Did approval fall because she got in? buff.ly/ehktz3M

Coast Guard Buys Two Private Jets for Noem, Costing $172 Million www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/u...

Proponents of Question 2 argue the existing law — often referred to as Maine’s yellow flag law — is a failed experiment that was not used to stop a gunman in Lewiston from killing 18 people and injuring and traumatizing countless others in 2023 despite warnings about his deteriorating mental health:

NEW: A dramatic voiceover video the White House and Donald Trump shared last week claiming to show "chaos" in Chicago is littered with outdated footage from Florida, Texas, South Carolina, Nebraska, California and Arizona, an AFP investigation found. factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

EMILY’s List out with the quick endorsement.

Mills says her confrontation with Trump in February helped push her into the race. To unseat Sen. Susan Collins, she'll have to win a potentially difficult Democratic primary via @npr.org www.npr.org/2025/10/14/n...

Mills was reportedly recruited by Democratic Senate leaders after her high-profile confrontation with President Donald Trump in February, in which she told the president she'd "see you in court."

ICYMI: Oyster farmer and veteran Graham Platner hopes his message lands with Maine voters via @npr.org 📻 🎧 one.npr.org/i/nx-s1-5565...

The Trump appointee accusing the president’s political foes of mortgage fraud skipped over his agency’s inspector general when making criminal referrals,, bypassing rules meant to ensure that federal officials don’t abuse their power for partisan purposes. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

Seeking to tap Democrats' anger over Trump, former Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap launches primary challenge against Rep. Jared Golden. buff.ly/giO4Tmb

Dunlap's campaign launch is trying to tap Democrats' frustration with Golden's approach to President Donald Trump:

How it looked in print ...

Today's court ruling has thoughts on masked ICE agents: "This Court has listened carefully to the reasons given by Öztürk’s captors for masking-up... It rejects this testimony as disingenuous, squalid and dishonorable. ICE goes masked for a single reason -- to terrorize Americans into quiescence."

NEW: DNC Chair Ken Martin tells me @npr.org special election results show Democrats are on the right track for 2026, and tells detractors to "stop bitching" and help the party's efforts. More on Martin's view that Democrats are winning -- even when they lose.

This is what I’ve been reporting on for months. Agencies are taking money and repurposing it against Congressional instructions, and there’s no way to know what they are taking the money from or what they are using it for.

Graham Platner is attacking Collins and leaders in the national Democratic Party, who he describes as proxies for a political system abandoning the working class and enriching corporations and wealthy interests:

A note about the crowd: campaign says there were 850 there. I couldn’t count from where I was. But the place couldn’t fit anymore people. There people listening from the parking lot and in the street behind this stage

Graham Platner at a town hall in Ellsworth. A hometown crowd of sorts, but they’ve packed this small brewery.

Experts say the FCC commissioner's conduct—testing how far the agency can go to limit speech without ever quite formally censoring it—is flatly unconstitutional. That won't make it stop. www.wired.com/story/brenda...

The group was formed as a response to upheaval at the U.S. CDC where Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is carrying out his decades-long campaign to limit vaccines. It hopes to share resources to ensure vaccine access while planning responses to public health emergencies:

A House Oversight Committee hearing produced a flood of bizarre claims about cloud seeding, chemtrails, and solar geoengineering. Proven, human-driven changes to the weather were dismissed. www.wired.com/story/the-do...

Good thread about today's Monarez hearing from a first-rate public health reporter.

NPR is tracking the record number of Congressional lawmakers who have announced they do not plan to run for reelection to their current seats in 2026. That number currently stands at 10 senators and 27 House members.

One of the leading contestants, Gov. Janet Mills, isn't an official candidate yet. Insurgent contender Graham Platner is campaigning as if she is, providing a sharp contrast in methods & rhetoric that could determine which Democrat challenges Republican US Sen. Susan Collins 🔊 📻 buff.ly/BxOurq5

Trump and Epstein are sick fucks.

The latest check-in with Gov. Janet Mills and her possible senate candidacy. www.mainepublic.org/politics/202...

PBS cuts 15% of jobs in wake of federal funding cut My story for NPR www.npr.org/2025/09/04/n...

Heritage is reportedly spending six figures to promote this guy's candidacy for Bureau of Labor Statistics. www.semafor.com/article/09/0...

Harbormaster. That was the extent of Graham Platner's political experience prior to announcing his senatorial bid. On Labor Day, he and gubernatorial candidate Troy Jackson joined Bernie Sanders to rally a crowd of 6,500 against the Trump admin -- and the Dem establishment 🔊 📻

We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...

The Sixteen Thirty Fund, the dark money org that funneled cash to local front groups to do spade work for the Dem campaign against Susan Collins in 2020, is now funneling cash to a group trying scoop up liberal influencers -- with conditions. buff.ly/5FizrGQ

The PBS show "American Experience" is gone. Staff laid off. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/a...

Also, the Labor Day rally in Portland with Bernie Sanders, Platner and gubernatorial candidate Troy Jackson has been moved to the city’s arena (seats ~9,500) to accommodate crowds. It was originally slated for the Merrill Auditorium (seats ~1,900)

“Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, may lose vital health care and food benefits, and the government may be responsible for reissuing every American a new Social Security number at great cost” DOGE Put Critical Social Security Data at Risk, Whistle-Blower Says

Update to this: Sen. Bernie Sanders will hold a Labor Day rally in Portland (ME). Platner and gubernatorial candidate Troy Jackson will speak.

The bat flip is glorious. This violent instrument is no longer useful to me.

On the left: Nate Cavanagh, a 28-year-old DOGE staffer and college dropout. On the right: Mohammad Halimi, a 53-year-old exiled Afghan scholar. This is the story of how DOGE targeted Halimi on social media. Then the Taliban took his family. 🧵

Defeating Susan Collins is Graham Platner’s primary goal, but he and his campaign also signaled that they’re gearing up for a potential fight against power brokers in the Democratic National Committee:

Defeating Susan Collins is Graham Platner’s primary goal, but he and his campaign also signaled that they’re gearing up for a potential fight against power brokers in the Democratic National Committee 📝 🔊 www.mainepublic.org/politics/202...