Some Thoughts On What's Next For Maine And Our Fight To Flip The Senate

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Morning all. The Maine Democratic Party released this video update featuring our good friend Devon Murphy-Anderson on their preparations to choose a new candidate to take on Susan Collins. Devon is the very capable Executive Director of the Maine Dems:

I encourage everyone to watch this video in its entirety. As a reminder here is the statement the leadership of the Maine Democratic Party released on Monday night:

As Platner remains in the race this morning I am going to share a passage from a Washington Post op-ed, I know firsthand why Graham Platner shouldn’t be a U.S. senator, written by Platner’s former political director, Genevieve McDonald, and a former Maine state rep (gift link). This ran on June 8th, just before Maine’s primary:

I became Graham Platner’s political director in August 2025 as he launched a bid for the Democratic Senate primary in Maine. Taking the job meant leaving a position as a senior policy adviser at a government relations firm in the state, but I thought that Platner and I shared the same goal: fighting for the working people of Maine.

I quit the campaign in October, disturbed by what I learned about the candidate and concerned about his potential impact on the Democratic Party’s prospects in my home state. As Tuesday’s primary arrives, I want to make clear what transpired since August and why my concerns have only grown. Advocating for the working people of Maine has driven me since my days as a commercial lobster boat captain and continued to drive me as a state legislator. I support my local community today by serving as the school board chair. Graham Platner is not someone who would be good for Maine or for the country.

If America wants a stronger democracy, elevating leaders with integrity is essential. Leaders with sound judgment and ethics. Leaders who embrace and live the ideals the nation stands for. Maine is a state that leads; it is the state motto — Dirigo.

Platner has shown us that he is not such a leader. He exhibits a pattern of dishonest behavior that is impossible to ignore. Despite being exposed by a series of scandals beginning last October, he kept assuring voters and the Democratic Party that there were no more skeletons in his closet. Then more emerged — the latest, in recent days, have involved former girlfriends’ serious accusations of physical mistreatment.

I was one of the Platner campaign’s first gaslighting casualties. In September, he told me that he had a tattoo that could be problematic, but assured me that it was just a military thing. I believed him. Then, I began receiving calls from Washington warning me he was not who he seemed: “Have you read his oppo file?” I had not. I trusted that his out-of-state consulting team had thoroughly vetted him.

The campaign marched into the fall, drawing crowds across the state. It was energizing and exciting. I shared a stage with him. I invited people who trusted me to meet with him. I sold his narrative of redemption, that he was a military veteran who, after enduring some troubled times, had moved home to Maine to live a simple life.

But at the same time, I shared my growing apprehension with my closest friends. When I raised concerns to anyone in the campaign, Platner would call me and convince me that everything was fine and that his intentions were noble.

I was willing to believe his explanations — I wanted to believe — until his flaws as a candidate became impossible to ignore.

Days before CNN broke a story about his archived Reddit posts, I was provided a document containing multiple inflammatory posts that were attributed to Platner posting as “P-Hustle.” When the story published, it noted that Platner had suggested online that rural White Americans are racist or stupid. I realized the campaign had not been honest with me. As someone from a real working-class background, I knew this would undermine his cross-party appeal.

Troubling posts kept surfacing. Politico ran a story with his online posts about political violence that were new to me. I started making calls, and someone sent me the full archive of his Reddit account. When his Reddit comments in 2013 downplaying sexual assault were revealed by The Post on Oct. 17, I submitted my resignation and made it public. I would no longer validate Platner.

I encourage you to read the whole story.

I share this story this morning for it helps provide context for why the Maine Democratic Party is so aggressively working to put Platner and the team that so ambitiously lied and gaslighted us for the past year in the review mirror. I want to stress here in that my more than 30 years in the game there have been very few instances that I can recall where a candidate, a campaign, and political ecosystem behind it asked us to believe so many different things that were so obviously untrue, as if we were all stupid; so willing to put our majority on the line for such a profoundly flawed, unvetted, and inexperienced candidate.

As we reflect on the Platner candidacy this morning I want everyone here to realize something essential - the entire “redemption” story at the heart of his candidacy was a lie. The story that broke a few weeks ago about his serial infidelity with between six and twelve women in the early days of his marriage happened after he “got better.” This infidelity was known to the campaign last summer. And yet they concocted a story about his life journey that they knew wasn’t true and sold it to us every day for the past year. This morning, as I write this, and as political professional, I remain absolutely shocked at what Platner and the ecosystem behind him tried to pull off, how unbelievably arrogant and reckless it all was.

As I wrote yesterday I still believe a solid, strong generic Democrat can beat Susan Collins this November. Harris won Maine by 7 points. Our candidate for Governor Hannah Pingree leads by 15. The generic ballot is 53%-42% Dem right now. This is the most favorable environment of any battleground state right now. But it is going to be essential, vital for whomever we pick to be able to put distance between them and Platner. For not only is he a despicable figure now, his political project was never as successful as his reckless gaslighters led us to believe; and this matters for the broader conversation about the future of our party.

We are going to spend some time with data now.

Over the last several months prior to the June primary Platner led Collins by an average of 7 points over Susan Collins. This is exactly the margin Harris won Maine by in 2024, 4 points below the +11 generic ballot the NYT published last week, and at least 8 points below our gubernatorial candidate, Hannah Pingree. I will once again share that recent chart of how our battleground Senate candidates are doing relative to Harris. This uses the NYT results for Platner from last week:

The Fox News poll last week had Platner trailing Susan Collins by 3. What this all means is that Platner has had the worst polling of any of our battleground candidates in the country this summer in what is by far and away the most Democratic state we are competing in this year.

G. Elliott Morris published an analysis last night that makes some of these same points, Graham Platner is a bad dude - and data show’s he’s a bad candidate too. In this analysis he uses a new data model he and the people behind FiftyPlusOne have created to better understand the state of the 2026 battleground. Morris writes:

Crucially, one thing the nowcast does is measure how competitive each Senate race is relative to expectations. Those expectations are set by taking the traditional partisan lean of each seat and shifting it by some amount that makes the resulting numbers, on average, predictive of current Senate (and House) polls. As the piece at 50+1 explains, that number today is 7.4 points — meaning we would expect Maine, which leans to the left by 8 points in presidential elections, to poll at D+8 + D+7.4 = D+15.4 with completely neutral candidate quality between the nominees.

Platner, who was polling at just two points ahead of Collins in the polling released before the latest allegations against him, is quite a ways below that benchmark.

The +15 is where Hannah Pingree, a well-established Democrat in Maine, is right now. Last week Platner was +2 in the NYT poll, and -3 in the Fox News poll.

Let’s now look at a bit more data from this new analysis from Morris. The number on the right column is the number of percentage points our candidates are over/underperforming against expectations right now in their nowcast model:

• Talarico 5.4

• Cooper 4.5

• Brown 4.2

• Turek 3.7

• Michigan -5.9 (both El-Sayed and Haley Stevens)

• Platner - 9.9

While Ossoff and Peltola are not included in Morris’ analysis they would fall into the overperformance camp, not the underperformance camp based on publicly available polling data of late.

What this means is that despite the current media narrative right now the two Bernie/DSA aligned candidates are both dramatically underperforming the national environment while most of our Senate candidates are overperforming; just as our candidates have been doing in special and local elections across the country throughout this election cycle. What makes this Bernie/DSA underperformance so unusual is that this is now the third election in a row where Senate Democratic candidates have consistently overperformed the national environment in the battlegrounds:

I want to stress how significant it is for all the talk about “Establishment Democrats” that the Senate Democrats have consistently outperformed the national environment in so many different races across three cycles now. It is this ability to overperform the national environment that is giving us a real shot to win flip the Senate this year. That shot becomes far more likely if we end up rallying behind a more traditional Democrat in Maine than someone aligned with Platner and his underperforming politics.

As for Michigan the first poll out since McMorrow dropped out has Stevens leading El-Sayed 42%-41%. But there are a lot of undecideds in this race, and it is going to be a dog fight between these two capable candidates until the primary on August 4th.

Today I am launching a new fundraising drive for Maine Democratic Party. For among the consequences of Platner’s reckless flameout is no money is pouring into Maine right now, putting whomever our next candidate is at an even greater disadvantage. My initial goal is to raise $25,000 for intrepid Democrats of Maine, though I hope we can go much higher than that this week.

We will be talking about all this tonight at our weekly paid subscriber gathering (register here), and yes my friends, it’s time……

To Get To Work Everyone!

Winning The House

Hopium’s Winning The House Campaign - $955,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate to all twelve of our endorsed House challengers with a single contribution split twelve ways | Get to know Jamie Ager (NC-11), Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Rebecca Cooke (WI-03), Elaine Luria (VA-02), Sean McCann (MI-04), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), Chaz Molder (TN-05), Jonathan Nez (AZ-02), Janelle Stelson (PA-10), Shannon Taylor (VA-01), and Sarah Trone Garriott (IA-03) by watching our recently recorded Hopium interviews.

Friends if these twelve win, the House will flip, no matter redistricting madness the Rs execute in the coming days. So eyes on the prize here everyone!

Winning The House - The Second Wave Fund - $168,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | We’ve launched a second House fund, one targeting candidates who’ve recently emerged from primaries or running in new districts. Our initial crew is Rebecca Bennett (NJ-07), Bob Brooks (PA-07), Cait Conley (NY-17), Johnny Garcia (TX-35), Bob Harvie (PA-01), Denise Powell (NE-02), and Bobby Pulido (TX-15).

A donation to the Second Wave Fund is split evenly among these seven, and more as other worthy candidates emerge from their primaries. Our total above includes money we’ve raised for directly for each candidate. You can watch interviews with all of seven of these intrepid leaders here. We are off to a great start here everyone!

Winning The Senate/Expanding The Map - Investing And Winning In Key Expansion States

Our New Winning The Senate Fund - $465,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a single donation to our five candidates must likely to flip a Senate seat this November - Sherrod Brown (OH), Roy Cooper (NC), Mary Peltola (AK), James Talarico (TX), and Josh Turek (IA). The $465,000 figure is what we’ve raised for these five so far, as you see will below (and a very modest amount for Platner is included in this total).

You can also contribute to their individual campaigns or our expansion state bundles here:

Roy Cooper For NC Senate - $129,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn more through my new discussion with Gov. Cooper

Mary Peltola For Alaska Senate - $114,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn more through my uplifting conversation with Mary Peltola as she fights to turn Alaska blue

James Talarico For Texas - $101,500 raised, $250,000 - Donate | Learn more from my inspiring interview with Rep. Talarico as he fights to turn Texas blue

Josh Turek For Iowa Senate - $34,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn more and volunteer | Watch my wonderful new interview with Josh Turek

Winning Iowa - $14,900 raised, $100,000 goal - We’ve also set up a new Winning Iowa campaign that splits a contribution three ways - to Josh Turek for Senate, to our gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, and to the Iowa Democratic Party and its great chair, Rita Hart

Winning Ohio - $172,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Our new campaign splits contributions evenly among Sherrod Brown, the Acton/Pepper ticket, and the Ohio Democratic Party | Donate today and help turn this critical 2026 battleground blue

Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $620,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Join our campaign that has helped expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas, all now central battlegrounds in the 2026 election | Contribute to all five state parties with one contribution split evenly among these five critical battlegrounds | Catch interviews with the five intrepid state chairs leading their troops into battle this year - will get you fired up!

Senate Holds

Jon Ossoff For GA Senate - $201,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn more through my uplifting conversation with Senator Ossoff

Note that we have now changed our ActBlue default settings so that your contact information is only shared with a campaign if you give your affirmative permission. Many of you have asked for this and it is now our standard operating procedure.

Some Things To Call Congress About This Week

• Yes to making American oligarchs pay for Trump’s failed Iran war - not every day Americans

• Yes to the Ukraine Support Act, get it passed through the Senate and to the President’s desk

• No to the ballroom, the Arch, the gilded statues, the slush fund, the corruption, self-enrichment……

• Hell no to Todd Blanche as Attorney General, and yes to very tough questioning of the new DNI nominee, Jay Clayton

• Hell hell no to the new OMB regs that will destroy government-funded science in America. Join the new Stand Up For Science campaign to Stop Vought. Save Science today.

See the Hopium Agenda Project for what we can and should be fighting for now, and our Resolutions Project for ways to more forcefully condemn Trump’s unprecedented corruption and betrayal of the country.

Make Hopium Stronger, Bigger, Better - And Keep It Paywall Free For All

A big thank you to everyone who has become a paid subscriber in recent days. Our Independence day subscription drive and sale netted us 282 new subscribes - a little short of our goal, but progress nonetheless. To help us hit our goal of 500 new subscribers I’m extending the sale of an annual new subscription through August 1st. So it’s 10% off an annual subscription now through the end of July, and follow the link below for group and gift subscriptions too!

Please use the paid subscriber chat to self-report the good trouble you make each day.

Keep working hard everyone. We have a country to save, and elections all across this great country to win, together! - Simon