Graham Platner, a 41-year-old oyster farmer and progressive darling, is signaling to donors that his primary battle against Maine Gov. Janet Mills is essentially over, despite voting still two months away.
The Platner campaign sent a memo Thursday claiming he holds a commanding lead, with internal polling showing him ahead by as much as 38 percentage points. The campaign framed its message clearly: the primary battle is won, now comes the real fight.
"Another day, another poll with Graham up big in the primary," campaign manager Ben Chin wrote in the memo. "We're feeling emboldened."
The pivot is striking. Platner's team told allies it is ramping up for a general election matchup while easing off primary spending. Chin wrote: "While we aren't taking our foot off the gas in the primary, we're shifting gears and going full steam ahead into the general."
The race has become one of the messiest Democratic primaries nationally, pitting a progressive backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders against a two-term governor with backing from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. The contrast cuts along lines of age, gender, and ideology.
Mills, 78, has taken the opposite approach, going negative hard. She has aired television ads featuring women criticizing controversial social media posts Platner made about rape years ago. The strategy reflects how much ground she appears to have lost.
Platner's memo contains a subtle but unmistakable reading of the negative ad campaign: it is not working. The polling figures Platner references were conducted after Mills' spots had run for three weeks, suggesting the attacks have failed to move voters.
The memo cited three recent surveys, a mix of public and private polls, with one paid for by Platner's campaign itself. All showed him with commanding margins.
Mills' camp offered a defiant response. "Republicans are foaming at the mouth to run against Graham Platner," said her Senate campaign spokesperson Tommy Garcia. "Plenty of people have tried to count Janet Mills out in her career, and they've been wrong every time."
Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who will face the Democratic nominee in November, has positioned herself as ready for either opponent. Her spokesman Shawn Roderick said Collins is "prepared to run a substantive, issues-oriented campaign regardless of who the opponent is."
Platner's team is already aiming fire at Collins, with new television ads launching and more scheduled in the coming weeks. Simultaneously, the campaign is removing its response ad to Mills' attacks, with a previous commercial showing Platner expressing regret over his old comments having already come off the air.
The campaign is also reorganizing its field operation to chase independent voters, planning town halls in conservative areas, and producing content featuring Platner speaking directly with Republicans. A debate with Mills before the June 9 primary is still scheduled.
Comments