Democratic leaders rarely have moments of vindication these days. The party is completely out of power at the national level. Its brand is in the toilet, if not the sewer. In March only a quarter of registered voters viewed the party positively, a figure that reflected not just Republican opposition and independents’ indifference but broad displeasure among Democrats. The party’s base may be activated—seven million people took to the streets over the weekend to protest President Trump’s increasingly authoritarian administration—but there is still widespread grassroots frustration with the people leading it.
Still, when reports emerged that Graham Platner, a neophyte candidate for the party’s Senate nomination in Maine, had posted racist comments on Reddit and had a chest tattoo of a Nazi symbol, party leaders had to feel that, at long last, they’d gotten something right. Days earlier, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had barged into the Maine race, backing the state’s relatively popular governor, Janet Mills, despite her 77 years of age. It’s hard to argue now that it wasn’t the right call. Platner, who is in his early forties, isn’t a Nazi, but the fact that you have to say that at all suggests he has no business running for Senate as a Democrat.
Writing in Politico, Jonathan Martin sees a lesson here for those less clear-eyed (or, depending on how you look at it, jaundiced) than himself. Democrats, he argued on Wednesday, fall in love with flawed candidates, backing them despite flaws that are oh-so-obvious to party brahmins (and, it goes without saying, Martin himself). “There’s a reason besides their preexisting fundraising lists why [Chuck] Schumer and his lieutenants prefer those who’ve run statewide and even, horror of horrors, ‘career politicians,’” Martin sniffed. “It’s because such candidates have been vetted and, if it exists, the oppo file on their youthful (or middle-aged) indiscretions has likely already been emptied.”
That’s true enough; no one fears that Mills has contemptible social media posts or tattoos that are yet to be discovered. But Martin then argues that Democrats who clamor for outsiders and antiestablishment figures—for normal people who have spent their life doing the kinds of things normal people do, which is very different from what people who plan to go into politics do—have lost touch with reality. “The pure democracy of candidate crowdsourcing is hardly superior to kingmaking when it comes to winning elections, as recent events illustrate,” he wrote.
I’m not so convinced. Martin populates his argument with a graveyard of fallen candidates—Amy McGrath, Stacey Abrams, Beto O’Rourke—who don’t actually have much in common other than losing to Republicans in prominent races. McGrath, running to unseat Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, was a huge long shot who raked in money by selling boomers a fantasy (beating the hated McConnell). Abrams and O’Rourke certainly resonated with the base, but both were seasoned pols with establishment connections—not really comparable to Platner, a military veteran and oyster farmer. And the DSCC backed McGrath but not O’Rourke, who said he didn’t want the support.
One name that’s missing from Martin’s piece is that of Sara Gideon, the last Maine Democrat to challenge Republican Senator Susan Collins. Gideon was an establishment-friendly Maine state representative who raked in tens of millions in donations and ran a campaign whose primary aim was to win over moderate Mainers who had repeatedly backed Collins. She lost by almost 10 points. Oh, and she was endorsed by the DSCC over a year before voters went to the polls.
I don’t think anyone could take a look at the state of the Democratic Party or, relatedly, the larger Democratic brand and conclude that the party’s “kingmaking” is going well. Platner generated a ton of attention online by seeming like the kind of candidate Democrats need—an authentic person with a knack for communicating a populist message in the social media era. It turned out he was a dud. That is going to happen sometimes when backing inexperienced candidates, perhaps more often than when backing experienced ones.
But let’s not pretend that experience doesn’t have downsides either. Martin is right: It does usually mean that all of the dirty laundry is already out there, which is an advantage. But playing it safe with “proven” politicians can backfire too. Opposition research isn’t just what you do before you enter politics: Voters also judge candidates for what they have accomplished in office. And experience is not an especially convincing argument for a party that needs to convince voters that it’s changing. Mills is, in many respects, a good candidate: She’s reasonably popular, with a 52 percent approval rating, knows how to win in a moderate state, and has solid anti-Trump bona fides—she checks a lot of boxes. But she’s also a septuagenarian who’s deeply connected to a Democratic establishment a lot of voters don’t like.
It’s hard to fault the DSCC for getting involved in Maine. Mills polls very well against Collins, and Platner was a novice who needed to be tested in a primary if he was going to be trusted to run in what might be the most important Senate election in 2026. He failed that test rather swiftly. There’s a lesson there, but I don’t think it’s that party leaders have immaculate judgment that many voters don’t. It’s good to run candidates voters fall in love with. Sometimes they fall in love with inexperienced candidates—like, I don’t know, Barack Obama or Zohran Mamdani—who really do have what it takes. A lot of times they don’t.
The real story is bigger than Maine and one race. Democratic leaders and incumbents are, on the whole, so old and uninspiring that anyone with a bit of charisma will generate the kind of hype that Platner did. He didn’t work out, and now Democratic Party leaders can boast that they got this one right. But they got it right by doing the same thing they always do—the same thing that has left the party powerless and in its weakest position in years.
The Democrats need excitement and youth. That requires taking some risks, which means elevating more candidates like Platner—so many of them that none of them carries the burden of being the party’s fresh-faced future. This is the weight on Mamdani’s shoulders. This is why TNR and many like-minded publications have written so many articles about him. And he’s only going to be a big-city mayor! Not even a statewide officeholder.
Mamdani is the exception that proves the rule about the infirm Democratic Party. Its rejuvenation will require hundreds of Mamdanis, if not more. That prospect probably gives Jonathan Martin heart palpitations—and that’s a good sign that it’s true.
The post Graham Platner Is a Disaster. Democrats Need More Candidates Like Him. appeared first on New Republic.
