Platner Drops Out of Senate Race, Blames Everyone Except Himself

Graham Platner "dropped out" of the Maine Senate race exactly like he ran his campaign: dishonest, selfish, blaming everyone but himself. Julie and Michelle unpack his self-pitying withdrawal video — full of vague grievances about unnamed forces "doing this to him" — (who tf is "they"?!) and why he refused to center it on Susan Collins, the woman he was supposedly running to beat. 

Recorded live Wednesday July 8, 2026

They walk through how Platner got here in the first place: recruited by DSA-aligned operatives who wanted a "white working-class hero" to run against establishment Democrats, and defended by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Ro Khanna long after his history of racist, misogynist, and antisemitic posts came to light. Julie argues this was never really about defeating Susan Collins — it was about a bid for control of the Senate Democratic caucus.

They also get into why the actual backbone of the Democratic Party — Black women, Latino voters, and a Jewish community that's rapidly souring on the party — keeps getting ignored in favor of chasing a mythical disaffected white male voter, and why AIPAC discourse plays well with the chronically online but has nothing to do with what voters in Lewiston or Augusta actually care about.

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