New Graham Platner Ad Comes Out SWINGING Against Collins
Bulwark Takes
The Bulwark
4.7 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 7 May 2026
⏱️ 19 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Sam Stein and Lauren Egan give their takes on the first ads from Maine Senate candidates Graham Platner and Susan Collins. The two campaigns couldn’t be more different. Platner comes out aggressively, launching a hard-hitting populist message that goes straight at Collins’ record and frames the race as part of a broader fight over power, Trump, and the direction of the country. Meanwhile, Susan Collins responds with a very different strategy: a nostalgic, local-focused ad centered on a decade-old infrastructure win in Maine. Sam and Lauren dig into what these opening ads reveal about each campaign’s theory of the race, whether Collins’ long-standing strengths still hold in today’s environment, and how Platner is betting that going on offense early will define her before she can define him.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everyone. It's me Sam Stein. Managing Editor at the Bullwork, joined by Lauren Egan, author of the opposition newsletter. She had a good one last night. We're not going to be talking about that, though. Sorry, Lauren. We've got other things on our mind. We're going to be talking about Graham Platner, who's got a new ad up in Maine and Susan Collins, who has an ad as well. Incredibly different spots. And I guess it's the first indication that we are definitely in general election season. |
| 0:22.9 | Learn, are you excited to just be inundated with Camp incredibly different spots. And I guess it's the first indication that we are definitely in general |
| 0:21.9 | election season. Learn, are you excited to just be inundated with campaign ads? Yeah, I look forward to it |
| 0:27.5 | every two years. It's my favorite thing. At least we don't live. Well, you're in Tennessee, |
| 0:31.7 | so you might get a lot of them. Yeah. I'm already starting to get them. But this is where cutting |
| 0:37.3 | the cord helps. You know, with streaming, it's a little bit harder to get them. But this is where cutting the cord helps. |
| 0:38.5 | With streaming, it's a little bit harder to find me. |
| 0:41.2 | Good point. |
| 0:42.0 | Yeah. |
| 0:42.4 | I feel for the people in California who just can't escape the Tom Steyer ads right now. |
| 0:47.1 | All right, let's start with Platner's ad, which is, I would say, generously, the more provocative of the two ads. Again, these ads have incredibly |
| 0:56.8 | different styles and it really says a lot about the state of this race. Let's watch the |
| 1:02.0 | platinum ad first. Susan Collins, charade is over. We don't care that you pretend to be remorseful |
| 1:09.2 | at the start of a new forever war that you chose to let happen. We don't care that you pretend to be remorseful at the start of a new forever war that you chose to let happen. |
| 1:13.6 | We don't care that you are concerned while we go broke as you sell us out to the president and to the Epstein class |
| 1:21.6 | who are engineering the greatest redistribution of wealth from the working class to the ruling class in this nation's history. |
| 1:29.3 | Symbolic opposition doesn't reopen hospitals. Weak condemnations don't bring back Roe v. Way. |
| 1:37.3 | In selling out the same working class voters who've delivered mandate for change after mandate for change is not forgivable. |
| 1:47.0 | A performative politics that enables the destruction of our way of life is disqualified |
| 1:54.0 | as a United States Senator. |
| 1:56.0 | I am running because it is time for change. |
| 2:00.0 | I'm Grant Platner and I approve this message. |
... |
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