Transcript: Platner Is Testing A New Strategy to Defeat Susan Collins

They said, I don’t like this about Graham. I wish he were more forthcoming last August when he launched his campaign. Like, couldn’t you have pictured a: Hey, I’m Graham. Now that you’re getting to know me, my wife and I would like to share a few things about what I’ve done in the past, because my opponents I think are going to dig it up and use it against me. I’d like to get you, the Maine voter, to know me early on and know that I’m not a perfect person by any means.

Some people felt like, why didn’t he just let us all know—rather than try to have all these things come out over the past few months, where it was story, and then a few months pass, and then another story, and then a few months pass.

So I think that was the negative reaction, including among some Democratic voters who were like, I might vote for Mills on Tuesday, or I’ll vote for David Costello, or I’m not going to fill in a bubble on the Senate section of Tuesday’s ballot.

But most people, as the results again confirm, were like, No, I’m sticking with Graham. Look at who is in the White House. Look at these other candidates around the country who have proven examples of past behavior that are not good, and yet they’re still winning elections. I am not going to let one series of stories totally change my opinion of this guy who is not perfect and had not been serving in higher office.

So there was that anger, too. Mainers feel pretty independent, and if they feel like somebody from out of state is coming after them—somebody being a collective, national—

Bacon: The national media, I’m going to say.

Kobin: Yeah. They feel like this is unfair. And they wrote letters to our paper, too—letters to the editor saying, “Shame on you all,” “The Press Herald—”

Bacon: Oh, geez.

Kobin: —for repeating these stories on the front page. I always like getting that criticism, though. I think it shows that people are reading and caring.

Bacon: That’s good. Yeah.

Kobin: So I think it was interesting to see—including some older voters and younger voters who were like, Stop making this into a huge “bombshell.” These are only past things, and some of them are claims rather than proven examples of what he did.

Bacon: Let me ask two final questions. I guess the first is—there was a lot of, I don’t know if this is national or in Maine, but I read a story in Politico and one in Bloomberg in the run-up to this saying, “If Platner does poorly in the primary, then Democrats can force him out of the race, and by July 13 can nominate somebody else.”

I always thought that was hard to see happening. But does last night—in that he got over 70 percent, he did pretty well—you think that’s over? You think he’s almost certainly going to be the candidate in November?

Kobin: I would say yeah, 98 percent, right? It’s over. And then you want to leave that 2 percent open as a skeptic who could think, “What if something happens?”

Bacon: Something, yeah.

Kobin: What if something else comes out that is crazy, or what if—just any unexpected—

Bacon: If he committed an actual crime that was very clear, that’s obviously different. Yeah.

Kobin: But otherwise, yeah, after last night, I was like, “OK, we had already been viewing this as a November battle between Graham and Susan for weeks now.” I think this past week was just, if anything, a reminder that every candidate has to keep campaigning. You can’t take anything for granted. You have to constantly work to win over voters. You can’t expect them to just anoint you right away—you’ve got to keep interacting with them.

And then I had this thought while driving back from Bangor last night—more than two hours—just a random thought: maybe yesterday was actually good in a way for Graham, to have more of a primary night party that was like, Hey, look, we’re still winning. Because in late April, we’d have been like—

Bacon: Yeah, you wouldn’t probably even really—

Kobin: Yeah, it benefited from needing national press here. So in a way, maybe it’s a good thing. And then on the flip side, it’s obviously not such a good thing that he’s had to deal with Democratic doubts from U.S. senators who are getting national attention because they have a pretty big platform on Capitol Hill with Capitol Hill press.

So obviously the next few months are going to be, all right, you’ve got to defend yourself against these constant attacks from Republican groups who are spending big already to say, Hey, how could you trust this guy? If he’s done all these things in his past and then told us about them now, you’ll never know what’s going to come out once he’s in DC if you elect him. So I think he’s smart. His campaign team is smart. They know that you’ve got to be prepared for more. And yeah, we’ll see what happens.

Perry Bacon: So I saw one of—I think there was a Collins spokesperson who responded to Graham’s speech, and they used the words “angry.” The quote had, “Maine voters are not looking for angry rhetoric,” was part of it. And I hadn’t thought of it before. I’ve liked a lot of what Graham said, but Graham is painting America as dominated by an oligarchy.

It’s a negative speech. It is a Trump, Bernie Sanders, the country is falling apart, we need to fix it kind of speech. And Collins does tend to be more of a “we can all work together.” She probably smiles more than Graham does. I don’t know much about Maine, but does Graham need to be more positive in a certain way, or do you think he’s speaking to the moment right now?

Kobin: I think the latter—speaking to the moment. I think some of this comes from past races. And I was in Kentucky with you in the past—I wasn’t always in Maine. But in 2020, there was that widespread sense of, OK, Sara Gideon and Democrats are not really sure on the ultimate strategy. It feels like there’s some disagreement on how to beat Susan.

And some of it was, when you run against her, you need to note that in a way you might try to do what she does by winning certain projects for Maine, and you’ll work with the other side at times. So Susan has done some good work, but she’s a Republican, and we need a change, and we can’t keep having Republican control of the Senate.

And then after 2020, when Susan won again by way more than the polls said, you had Democrats who were like, Look, stop. Stop giving her credit. Stop playing so nice. Stop pretending like everything is good. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but stop pretending everything is fine in this country and that we just need to slowly keep chipping away, because we’ll get Trump out of the White House.

Obviously, Trump came back to win in 2024 when people thought there was no way he was going to win a second term. And then Democrats, in the same vein of this Maine race, felt maybe we just had to tell people, There’s no way you’d let this guy back in the White House. But look what happened.

So I think people are like, Oh yeah, we should be careful not to go against Maine’s sensible side—New England being very engaged and civic and polite. We need to always do that. But no, Graham said, No, we don’t need to keep acting so neat and expecting that change will happen incrementally. He feels differently, and a lot of his supporters feel that way.

The first attack ad, real quick too—that he put out, I think after Mills had dropped out of the race—was definitely going after Susan hard. And again, it had that tone. And I heard a longtime political pundit in Maine who had beaten Susan Collins in the ‘90s in a race for governor—which was the first race that she lost, when she ran for governor of Maine—he was like, “You know what? At first glance, this might seem a little rough around the edges and intense to have that negative tone, but I think he’s onto something with this strategy.”

And it’s a well-thought-out plan—both in speeches and in ads—on Graham’s part, to get a little more aggressive. And then of course, over the next few months, we may see some more softening of ads at times that are focused just on Graham, as in, Hey, I’m a person. This is me. I’m not perfect, but this is where I’m from—Sullivan, Maine. So there’s probably going to be that mix of more positive, lighter ads that focus on him, and then the more negative, aggressive ads that say, Hey, how is this country working for you if prices are going up and Susan and Republicans are continuing to vote mostly with Trump and let him do whatever he wants to do?

Bacon: Should be interesting. I’m fascinated by this race, so I’ll probably have you on again. Billy, good to see you. Thanks for joining me.

Kobin: Likewise. Thanks, Perry. See ya.

Bacon: Good luck reporting this week. Bye-bye.

Kobin: Appreciate it.