{"id":1033,"date":"2026-07-22T17:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T17:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=1033"},"modified":"2026-07-22T17:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T17:37:11","slug":"maines-mad-scramble-to-replace-graham-platner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=1033","title":{"rendered":"Maine\u2019s Mad Scramble to Replace Graham Platner"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On the Monday after the Fourth of July, Jordan Wood was visiting the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, in the North Dakota badlands, when his iPhone started blowing up. Wood, a good-governance activist and a former congressional staffer, had been a candidate in Maine\u2019s Democratic primary for Senate, before dropping out to run in the primary for an open U.S. House seat instead, a race he\u2019d narrowly lost a few weeks earlier. Now, during his first real vacation in more than a year, friends back home were relaying a rumor that Politico<\/em> was on the verge of publishing a damning story about Graham Platner, the populist oysterman turned politician who, despite a slew of earlier damaging stories\u2014about a Nazi tattoo, offensive Reddit posts, and mistreatment of ex-girlfriends\u2014had, in June, won Maine\u2019s Democratic Senate primary with seventy-two per cent of the vote. After Politico<\/em> published its story, in which an ex-girlfriend of Platner\u2019s accused him of sexual assault, Wood decided that Teddy Roosevelt could wait. He cut his vacation short and headed back to Maine. Three days later, after Platner announced that he was ending his Senate campaign, Wood announced that he was re-starting his.<\/p>\n

Read more The New Yorker Festival Offers a First Look at Its 2026 Lineup<\/a><\/p>\n

The following week, I met up with Wood at his house, a brown-shingled Cape Cod that sits on a bluff above the Androscoggin River, in Auburn, about forty miles north of Portland. Wood, who is thirty-six, paced around his living room\u2014which was doubling as his campaign war room\u2014in a moisture-wicking T-shirt, running shorts, and ankle socks. His husband, Jake Lipsett, who co-founded the Democratic digital-fund-raising firm Mothership, sat in a lounge chair and worked on a laptop, refreshing the Maine Democratic Party\u2019s website to monitor who Wood\u2019s opponents would be. The filing deadline was at five o\u2019clock that afternoon, and the field was becoming increasingly crowded. Three candidates who\u2019d lost in Maine\u2019s Democratic gubernatorial primary the previous month\u2014Maine\u2019s secretary of state Shenna Bellows; the former state-Senate president Troy Jackson; and Nirav Shah, a former public-health official\u2014were already in. So was Dan Kleban, a brewery owner who briefly ran for the Senate seat last year. But most of the new entrants were people whom Wood had never heard of. \u201cWho\u2019s Ashley Webb?\u201d he asked Alex Obolensky, the campaign manager for Wood\u2019s Senate and House campaigns, who was now sitting on Wood\u2019s living-room couch. \u201cNo one knows,\u201d Obolensky said. Wood replied, \u201cWelcome to the clown car.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Platner\u2019s march through the Senate primary\u2014from which he drove out not just Wood but, more impressively, the state\u2019s term-limited governor, Janet Mills\u2014had confounded establishment Democrats in Maine and in Washington, D.C.; now, after resigning themselves to a candidate they despised in a must-win contest this November, they were being given an unexpected mulligan. But Platner\u2019s downfall had left many of the progressive insurgents who\u2019d fuelled his rise distraught\u2014and even more distrustful of the political system than they\u2019d been before. (In an angry eleven-minute video announcing his withdrawal, Platner, who denied the allegation of sexual assault, had accused \u201clarge forces\u201d of working against him and complained that the \u201ccorporate media system and the political establishment got to act as judge, jury, and executioner.\u201d) The challenge confronting the candidates seeking to replace Platner\u2014not to mention the Democratic muckety-mucks\u2014was how to reinvigorate, in two weeks, a movement that had taken Platner nearly a year to build.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The state Democratic Party had called a special convention for July 25th, in Bangor, in which six hundred and one delegates would pick a new candidate to face Susan Collins, Maine\u2019s five-term Republican Senator, in November. A hundred and one of the convention\u2019s delegates would be members of a state Democratic committee; the other five hundred would be chosen in caucuses at the county level the weekend before the convention, on July 18th and 19th. Wood and his team were working the phones to try to get his supporters to run for delegate. They left no stone unturned. \u201cWe just need more people to sign up to be delegates in Waldo and Knox counties,\u201d Wood said, in a call to his father, who is the pastor of a Congregational church in Camden that serves both counties. \u201cSo I was hoping you and Mom could text the folks that go to church that you\u2019re friends with, whoever you\u2019re comfortable with, that are supportive. Do you have the sign-up link to be a delegate? I assume you\u2019ve signed up?\u201d<\/p>\n

With other potential delegates, Wood had to strike an uneasy balance, arguing that he was the candidate best suited to continue Platner\u2019s political project, while distancing himself from the scandals that torpedoed Platner\u2019s campaign. Talking to a state-House candidate, he said, of his opponents, \u201cThey\u2019re all saying, sort of publicly, \u2018I support one hundred percent of Graham\u2019s agenda,\u2019 and I\u2019m, like, Do you, though? Do you even know what that agenda is?\u201d He added, \u201cI was running for U.S. Senate before Graham, and I was talking about Israel\u2019s war crimes in Gaza, AIPAC<\/em>, the need for Medicare for All.\u201d In other conversations, Wood boasted that, at the outset of his first Senate campaign, he had paid thirty thousand dollars to be vetted by a political-research firm. His only tattoos, he noted, were of a seashell and the 2008 Obama-campaign emblem. The fact that he\u2019s gay was also an asset: \u201cWe\u2019ve done polling, actually, and voters trust gay candidates more than straight candidates, and my theory is that they know gay candidates are being honest with them about themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the midst of all of this private politicking, public tragedy struck. On the morning of July 13th, an ICE<\/em> agent in the coastal city of Biddeford, Maine, shot and killed Joan Sebasti\u00e1n Dur\u00e1n Guerrero, a Colombian immigrant in his mid-twenties whose car the agent had tried to stop, after mistaking him for someone else. (As it turned out, the ICE<\/em> agent and Wood had gone to the same middle school. \u201cIt\u2019s a small, small state,\u201d Wood told me.) The next day, Wood addressed attendees at a vigil for Guerrero in Lewiston, just across the Androscoggin River from Auburn. Wearing his campaign-trail uniform\u2014Oxford shirt, solid-color tie, khakis, Blundstone boots\u2014he stood inside of a gazebo in a downtown city park and quoted Saint Augustine: \u201c\u00a0\u2018Hope has two beautiful daughters.\u2019 One is anger at the way things are, and we have a lot of anger at the way things are. But the second is courage\u2014the courage and determination to make things better, and we need to hold on to courage.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Bellows also spoke at the vigil. At one point, she mispronounced Guerrero\u2019s name; later, she talked so much about the Senate race that a heckler shouted, \u201cThis is about Joan! Not about your campaign!\u201d Wood called Bellows\u2019s speech \u201claugh-out-loud cringey.\u201d But he was more energized by how the shooting had shifted attention away from Platner\u2014and toward what\u2019s at stake in the race. \u201cWe were in mourning after this primary debacle,\u201d he told me. \u201cBut, after Monday morning, it was, like, O.K., we got to pick ourselves back up. We got to beat Susan Collins. She could have stopped this. It just moved people to refocus on why this election matters, and that\u2019s what people are talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Wood wasn\u2019t working the phones or attending vigils, he was preparing for a televised debate scheduled for July 16th\u2014two days before the start of the county caucuses\u2014in Portland. Standing behind a lectern and facing a laptop perched on the mantel in his living room, he workshopped his opening statement and answers to various questions with his debate coach, Reed Adamson, who was Zooming in from Oregon. \u201cJordan, you ate your Wheaties last night!\u201d Adamson said. \u201cGreat job!\u201d<\/p>\n

The debate\u2019s host, News Center Maine, had originally invited just Bellows, Jackson, Shah, and Wood\u2014all of whom had received at least twenty per cent of the vote in their respective primaries, in June\u2014to participate, but Jackson, the former state-Senate president, protested that the debate should be open to all twelve declared candidates. He said that it was about respecting the democratic process; Wood suspected that Jackson, who is not a particularly gifted orator, had ulterior motives. \u201cHe wants it to be as many people up there as possible so he won\u2019t be scrutinized,\u201d Wood said.<\/p>\n

In the end, News Center Maine compromised. It would host two separate, back-to-back debates: one featuring Wood and the other original three candidates, informally dubbed \u201cthe big-kids\u2019 table,\u201d and a second featuring Kleban, Webb, and two additional candidates, referred to as \u201cthe little-kids\u2019 table.\u201d Instead of one ninety-minute debate, each one would be sixty minutes\u2014meaning that, while Jackson wouldn\u2019t have a crowded stage, he\u2019d at least have less time on it.<\/p>\n

Some of the candidates seemed eager to debate\u2014in part to promote their candidacies but also to promote themselves. The News Center Maine event \u201ccould be one of the highest-viewed Senate Democratic primary debates in the country,\u201d Wood said. He was even more jazzed that CNN had announced it would host another debate the following week, two days before the convention in Bangor. \u201cDana Bash and Jake Tapper, who do the Presidential<\/em> debates, are going to be moderators,\u201d he marvelled. But there was, admittedly, something odd about having televised debates when the contest was ultimately going to be decided by just six hundred and one people\u2014who, presumably, would have the opportunity to speak directly with the candidates themselves. Wood seemed to acknowledge the disconnect. In a call with a state representative who was running to be a delegate, he\u2019d made a detailed, granular case both for his candidacy and against his opponents\u2019. After hanging up, he told Lipsett, \u201cI think I convinced her. She said, \u2018I just want the best candidate to beat Susan,\u2019 and she seemed sold by the argument. The only problem is, I don\u2019t have the time to make that argument in the debate or on TV. It\u2019s very insider-y.\u201d<\/p>\n

An hour before the first debate began, the eight candidates gathered in a greenroom at the News Center Maine studios, in Portland. Webb, a transgender singer and writer, kept to herself, eating a piece of pizza with a knife and a fork. Wood, Jackson, Shah, and Kleban glad-handed, recounting where they were when they first heard the news that Platner was likely finished. Bellows sat in an adjacent office, flipping through a briefing binder. Mike Redding, the station\u2019s news director, told the candidates that, unlike the gubernatorial and House debates that News Center Maine had hosted earlier in the year, all of which were recorded, this one was going to be broadcast live. \u201cNo cussing,\u201d he reminded them. \u201cTroy, that\u2019s not going to be a problem for you, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more The Saddest Happy Hours in N.Y.C.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Jackson, a fifth-generation logger from Aroostook, Maine\u2019s northernmost county, was a pro-life Republican before becoming a pro-choice Democrat. He was known in Augusta for both his fiery temper and his populist positions, such as supporting universal school meals and stopping the closure of Veterans\u2019 Homes locations in rural Maine. During his gubernatorial campaign, he was endorsed by the Maine Democratic Socialists of America, as well as by Bernie Sanders, and he often campaigned with Platner. He was more authentically working class than Platner\u2014who was the child of a wealthy lawyer and a restaurateur\u2014but he was also much less charismatic. (He finished in third place in the gubernatorial primary.) \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people that are energized to get universal health care and take on corporations,\u201d Jackson told me. \u201cThe issues aren\u2019t Graham\u2019s. They aren\u2019t mine. But we can still do this and get the government we deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the debate, Jackson and the other candidates managed not to curse, but that might have been their greatest achievement. Shah\u2014who rose to prominence in Maine during the COVID<\/em>-19 pandemic, when, as the director of the state\u2019s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, he gave regular televised briefings\u2014was the most polished speaker; but, having spent the past year running for governor, he seemed unfamiliar with some federal issues. After attacking Collins for being a rubber stamp for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, one of the moderators reminded Shah that she\u2019d opposed his nomination. Jackson also seemed uncomfortable at times with the details of the new office he was seeking. Responding to a question about a program he would cut in order to bring down government spending, he answered that he\u2019d end \u201cthe war in Iran\u201d\u2014which isn\u2019t a program and, as expensive as it is, constitutes only a pittance of the federal budget. Wood knew the federal issues, but, despite hitting his marks in debate prep, his presentation was halting, and he never managed to distinguish himself onstage.<\/p>\n

Bellows was a disaster. After accusing Collins of not doing more to oppose Trump\u2019s foreign policy on Venezuela, one of the moderators noted that she had voted for a war-powers resolution limiting what Trump could do in the South American country. \u201cForgive me,\u201d Bellows replied. \u201cA week ago, I was on vacation.\u201d In the greenroom, Elizabeth Dickerson, one of the little-kids\u2019-table participants, buried her head in her hands. \u201cOh, Shenna,\u201d Dickerson said. \u201cShe just lost the race.\u201d Commenting on the debate on his live stream, the leftist political activist Hasan Piker lamented, \u201cThey\u2019re all so rizz-less.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two days later, not long after sunrise, Wood pulled his Chevy Tahoe out of the driveway of his second home\u2014a contemporary farmhouse in the midcoast town of Bristol\u2014and began what would be a two-hundred-mile round trip, as he visited three county-caucus sites across the state. He was optimistic about what lay ahead. \u201cI do think Maine is probably the best state you could ask to do this,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a small population and a highly informed, very engaged electorate with a culture of democracy and holding town meetings.\u201d He thought that New Hampshire and Vermont could probably pull it off, too. \u201cBut Massachusetts?\u201d he said. \u201cThat would be a clusterfuck.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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His first stop was an elementary and middle school in the town of Ellsworth, where the Hancock County Democrats were holding their caucus. Hancock is Platner\u2019s home county, and his presence loomed large. A man wearing a tartan plaid suit and playing the bagpipes tried to enter the school, only to be turned away by a Party volunteer. \u201cI played for Bernie in 2016!\u201d the man shouted. \u201cI\u2019m going to play for Graham!\u201d Inside, a piece of butcher paper, with \u201cTo Graham & Amy\u201d written in big letters at the top, sat on a table for people to leave messages of support for the former candidate and his wife: \u201cWe are 4EVER<\/em> grateful for what you have done\u201d; \u201cWe still support you!\u201d; \u201cYou are the leaven that started this dough rising! We couldn\u2019t bake the bread without your power.\u201d I asked a blue-blazered middle-aged man named Joseph Kennedy if he thought Platner was right to drop out. \u201cWell, let\u2019s just say that if I had a choice between a convicted sex offender and Susan Collins,\u201d he replied, \u201cI\u2019d still vote for the convicted sex offender.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy was one of two hundred and twelve Hancock Democrats running for twenty-three delegate spots, plus five alternates. More than a thousand Hancock Democrats had signed up to vote. The big-kids\u2019-table candidates all attempted to create delegate slates, with varying degrees of success. Shah\u2019s included several people who were actually supporters of his opponents. So did Wood\u2019s. Bellows was circulating at least two different slates\u2014an official roster of names that was being passed out from her campaign table, and an apparently unofficial second list, written by hand on the type of stationery used for grocery lists, which was being circulated by the candidate\u2019s mother. \u201cShenna\u2019s mom came up to me and said, \u2018I put you on the list,\u2019\u00a0\u201d Michael Nickerson, a Bellows supporter, told me.<\/p>\n

Only Jackson, it seemed, understood how to put together a slate. At his campaign table, volunteers wearing \u201cI\u2019M HERE FOR TROY<\/em>\u201d stickers on their shirts handed out pieces of paper with twenty-three names and a note at the bottom of the page that read \u201cVOTE FOR EVERY ONE<\/strong> ON THIS SLATE AND NO OTHER NAMES<\/strong><\/em>.\u201d When Hancock County Democrats voted, later that day, Jackson delegates captured all twenty-three delegate spots.<\/p>\n

Wood\u2019s next stop was the Augusta Civic Center, where Kennebec County Democrats were holding their caucus. There, I talked to Jackson, who was greeting supporters by his campaign table. He wore a short-sleeved checked shirt, shorts, and a baseball hat that bore his name and the words \u201cHell No to the Status Quo.\u201d Knowing how quickly the gubernatorial candidates had had to pivot to the Senate campaign\u2014some Bellows supporters had put duct tape over the words \u201cFor Governor\u201d on their yard signs\u2014I asked if the hat was left over from his other campaign. \u201cYeah, it is,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s pretty much my life.\u201d He said his goal was to cinch the nomination this weekend. \u201cI\u2019m an organizer at heart,\u201d he said. \u201cWe do feel like we\u2019ve got a really good shot here.\u201d In Kennebec, Jackson supporters won all forty delegate spots.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Wood\u2019s final stop of the day was Wiscasset Middle High School, where the Lincoln County Democrats were holding their caucus. He ran into his mom and dad, who live in Lincoln and had indeed signed up to be delegates, although they hadn\u2019t had much success in persuading their friends to do the same. As the scale of Jackson\u2019s victory became apparent, Wood tried to argue that there was still hope; Jackson\u2019s delegates weren\u2019t required to vote for him at the convention. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t want anyone on my slate if they were only voting for me,\u201d he said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t even say my parents are fully committed to voting for me.\u201d As it turned out, he didn\u2019t need to worry about that. Although Jackson\u2019s supporters won only seven of Lincoln County\u2019s fifteen delegate spots\u2014one of his worst performances that weekend\u2014Wood\u2019s mom and dad were not elected, either.<\/p>\n

The next day, as Jackson continued to rack up huge delegate counts at the remaining eight county caucuses, his opponents ceded to reality. Bellows, Shah, Kleban, and, finally, Wood all either ended or suspended their campaigns and endorsed or indicated support for Jackson. CNN, meanwhile, announced that it was cancelling its debate. The gathering of the six hundred and one delegates in Bangor this Saturday will be less of a convention than a coronation.\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n

Read more Sometimes It\u2019s O.K. to Let a Language Die<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jason Zengerle writes about the race for Democratic candidate for Maine Senate, in the wake of Graham Platner\u2019s fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-lede"],"yoast_head":"\nMaine\u2019s Mad Scramble to Replace Graham Platner - City Relocation News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=1033\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Maine\u2019s Mad Scramble to Replace Graham Platner - City Relocation News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jason Zengerle writes about the race for Democratic candidate for Maine Senate, in the wake of Graham Platner\u2019s fall.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=1033\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City Relocation News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-22T17:37:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"16 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=1033#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=1033\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3e7ce0c0c60d21e12a5ac61fb2b786d4\"},\"headline\":\"Maine\u2019s Mad Scramble to Replace Graham Platner\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-22T17:37:11+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=1033\"},\"wordCount\":3204,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=1033#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/42033c778f001da4f4cd54790c0479ce.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"The Lede\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=1033#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=1033\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=1033\",\"name\":\"Maine\u2019s Mad Scramble to Replace Graham Platner - 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