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PORTLAND, Maine — Graham Platner understands the comparisons to Sen. John Fetterman. In 2022, Fetterman was a gruff Democratic Senate candidate in Pennsylvania whose national origin story began on the left. He overcame a controversy — and a lengthy absence from the campaign trail — to win in a key swing state, only to drift further and further away from the progressives who fueled his rise. Fetterman has seen longtime staff and supporters abandon him as he makes overtures to the right and breaks with Democrats on the government shutdown — although he largely still votes with his party. Platner is enduring his own controversies as a Democratic Senate candidate in Maine. And while he and Fetterman have notable surface-level similarities — both tattooed, shoot-from-the-hip white men who have a more working-class aesthetic, eschewing a shirt-and-tie ensemble for hoodies and crewnecks — they have also had many of the same political consultants working for them, including top operatives Rebecca Katz and Joe Calvello. In a recent interview with NBC News, Platner smiled and chuckled when asked to respond to the Democrats who worry he could be another Fetterman. “Look, as somebody that was disappointed [with Fetterman] — if I was me looking in, I would have the same concerns,” Platner said after a campaign rally in Portland, Maine, on Sunday. “We’ve been burned before.” “But what I would say is that a good reading of my history, a good reading of how I got here in my life, of the kind of life I’ve lived up until now shows, I would say, a distinct difference from Sen. Fetterman’s campaign and where he wound up. And I know that these are just words,” Platner added. “In some ways, I just have to ask people to trust me, but that’s all I can do.” Accompanying Platner for his interview was Calvello, a spokesman for Fetterman on the campaign trail and in the Senate before becoming one of the first officials to resign from his office last year. He’s now a top aide to Platner. Platner is in the thick of it now. Over the last four weeks, he has apologized for a string of offensive comments he made in past Reddit posts, covered up a tattoo on his chest that has a Nazi association — one he said he was unaware of when he got the tattoo — and lost top staff. Fetterman, for his part, said he’s staying away from the Maine Senate primary when asked in a hallway interview on Capitol Hill about his views on Platner. “I don’t have any views,” Fetterman said. “And I think it’s arrogant for any of us to participate in it. It’s like, Pennsylvania Democrats are going to decide who they want? Ask them about Katie McGinty, how that worked the last time. Keep their thumbs off the scale. I deeply respect the Maine Democrats. That’s their voice.” “Get over yourselves, and just let the Dems in Maine do what they’re gonna do,” he said. “It’s pretty arrogant. If you don’t represent that state, just sit it out.” Four operatives who’ve worked for either one or both men say they don’t see many similarities between the two — particularly when it comes to their progressive bona fides. Fetterman, they said, was distancing himself from the progressive label long before winning his 2022 race, only to fight more frequently with the left after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel. He had also staked out a pro-Israel position in the primary that year — one that got relatively little attention given that the issue was less at the forefront at the time. Platner, they note, has a much more detailed list of policy proposals on his campaign site, has for years promoted progressive causes and is warmly embracing the support of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in his bid for office. Additionally, these staffers note that Fetterman had spent years in elected office, both locally and at the state level, before winning his 2022 election, whereas Platner, a Marine veteran whose views were shaped in part by serving three combat tours in Iraq, is a political neophyte. “People online have been saying that Graham and John are similar for whatever reason,” said one person who has spent time with both men and requested anonymity to speak candidly. “I don’t see it, to be honest, other than the fact that they’re both white guys who are blunt-talking. That’s kind of where the similarities end.” Trè Easton, a former Fetterman aide, said he does see parallels between the two men, whether it’s their shared strategists or simply the profile they’ve projected on the campaign trail. “There’s a fair parallel to be drawn there,” said Easton, vice president for public policy at Searchlight Institute, a new center-left think tank, adding: “And I frankly think it’s very fair for people to ask, ‘Well, you’re the people who brought us Fetterman. How should we be sure that you’re going to get it right this time?’” “No one could have predicted that John would have turned himself into sort of the pariah amongst the Democratic Party that he has become,” he continued, adding, however, that Platner “seems to be a very thoughtful, genuinely progressive person espousing things that are far to the left of anything John really ever backed during his ’22 campaign anyway.” Aside from the stroke that took him off the campaign trail for three months, Fetterman had to deal with controversy during his Senate bid. Opponents at the time criticized him for a 2013 incident in which Fetterman, then the mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, chased down a Black jogger and pulled a gun on him, detaining him because he thought he was running from what Fetterman said he believed was gunfire. The man was unarmed. Former Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Pa., was one of Fetterman’s opponents in the 2022 Senate primary. He said Platner needs to answer questions about his character. “Summing up, what I have to say is that character matters in the left, right, and center,” Lamb said in an email. “In 2022, people felt Fetterman had the correct left positions so they ignored obvious red flags about his character. The question needs to be asked.” “A Nazi tattoo is on another level and the candidate’s explanations sound, to me, more like excuses than a clear, ‘I was wrong,’” Lamb continued. “However, he has time to show the character of the man he is today and the voters should think about his character separate and apart from whether he is left, or moderate, or young or old.” Even as Platner deals with the aftermath of his recent controversies, he is drawing considerable crowds. The 41-year-old oyster farmer spoke to a packed house at the State Theatre in Portland on Sunday. “It is amusing for me to watch the campaign described in the media as collapsing or falling apart — when internally, we frankly have not felt this strong since the beginning,” Platner told NBC News. “It hasn’t sunk my campaign. In fact it seems, in many ways, it’s strengthened us.” “I want to talk about my evolution as a human being,” he said. “A lot of Americans also want to have hope that you can change and that you can evolve, and that we can have a society that gives grace and forgiveness to people.” Maine’s Senate race is shaping up to be the most contested of the 2026 cycle — the Republican-held seat that Democrats have the best chance of flipping on a map with few, if any, other realistic pickup opportunities. Platner, who also shares advisers with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, is running on a platform of housing affordability, universal health care and ending U.S. involvement in foreign wars. A dozen rally attendees who spoke with NBC News at Platner’s event said they don’t consider his past comments disqualifying, though some said it gave them pause and they’re undecided. Others, though, said they accept his explanations and plan to vote for him in next year’s primary, where he faces multiple rivals, including Democratic Gov. Janet Mills. What’s more, Tuesday’s elections showed Democratic voters might have less of an appetite to punish controversial candidates. In New York City, Mamdani defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo by about 9 points in a race where a number of top New York Democrats refused to endorse the self-described Democratic socialist or withheld their support for months, fearing his left-wing advocacy could harm the party’s electoral chances elsewhere. In Virginia, Democratic attorney general candidate Jay Jones comfortably defeated his Republican opponent after years-old text messages were released revealing that Jones had suggested the top Republican in the state House of Delegates deserved “two bullets to the head.” Jones released a statement apologizing for the comments. One former Fetterman campaign official said it would be unwise for Democrats to rule out rallying behind candidates like Fetterman and Platner, noting that Fetterman was able to secure a big win over Mehmet Oz, his Republican challenger, even after having to leave the campaign trail for months. On Platner, this person said that while the tattoo is a problem, they see it as a bit overblown, pointing out that it’s “not like you had a swastika.” “You have to have cognitive dissonance to not understand the difference between Fetterman and Graham,” this person said. “And so just to say, ‘Oh, well, John is a right-winger on Israel and now just going on Fox News all the time messaging for Republicans, to just attribute that as the obvious arc of somebody who’s running as a lefty and nonestablishment white dude, and obviously they’re going to do the same thing when they get elected, is just dumb.” In an interview with NBC News ahead of his campaign launch, Platner said his focus in office would be on “fighting for working-class values” and “fighting for policies that help working-class people [claw] back a lot of the power that has been consolidated in the kind of higher establishment-class politics.” He said “getting dragged into many of these minor kind of culture war skirmishes is not remotely the answer.” He also praised Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, who announced Thursday he would not seek re-election, for working to protect working-class voters in his state, as well as Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., for his effort to bar congressional stock trading. Speaking with NBC News, Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., said he was not worried that Platner would be some sort of “crypto Fetterman.” “He’s running a very authentic race,” Gallego said, adding: “I’m not worried about how he ends up governing because I think he’s been straightforward about who he is. I think he’s caught fire. He’s going through some rough patches, but people are still showing up in the middle of nowhere to see him speak. So he must be doing something right.” Steve Schale, a Democratic strategist based in Florida, said he believes Platner would govern as “a pretty straight progressive,” noting he never believed Fetterman was that progressive. “My biggest issue,” Schale said, “I’m not convinced he can win a general election.”
