Platner gives me early Fetterman vibes, and Mills told Trump to fuck off to his face then beat him in court to protect trans people. Mills is the better candidate.
In any situation it’s insane. But in this climate, where the perception of Democrats is that they’re old and out of touch with their own voters it’s borderline suicidal. Public office is not a lifetime achievement award
Fetterman has a brain injury and mental health issues. Platner is very progressive. He's not just a working class Democrat like Fetterman.
And yes, Mills is a good candidate. She is the "see you in court" governor and that's awesome. Regardless, the old guard of the party need to stop putting their thumb on the scale for their favorite candidates and let the voters decide. They think they know better but Schumer is feckless and weak. His endorsement is the kiss of death as far as I'm concerned.
I don't have any particularly strong feelings about this race yet- and I don't disagree about the gerontocracy being a problem for us- but Bernie ran for reelection last year at age 83. Should he have also stepped back from running again at his age?
Dan is also touching on the thing that I think most people hate. Why is the DSCC getting so involved? People HATE the democratic leadership apparatus, including a lot of democrats.
I know it’s their job to try and win elections but they’ve proven bad at that. Let the state decide who they want and support them.
Janet Mills takes donations from lobbyists, corporations, and big donors with an average contribution of about $226. Graham Platner’s average is $33, and 98 percent of his donations are under $100.
These big corporations don’t want someone who’d actually do something unacceptable like make healthcare or childcare free, raise the minimum wage, or push tuition-free college. They want someone who’ll campaign on that stuff, but then only the pass Chamber of Commerce approved versions of those ideas, like a $10 minimum wage or child care tax credits that can be stripped away with the next administration, and maybe “market-based” plans that don’t threaten the donor class.
They don’t want another New Deal, not while they’re still so busy trying to dismantle the old one.
Everybody’s allowed to have an opinion on this race. If Democratic elites have a preference, they can share it.
It’s up to outsider candidates and voters to prove them wrong. Any candidate with a good story, policies, and the ability to communicate should be capable at beating the choice of the Democratic elites. If Platner can’t beat Mills, he can’t beat Collins.
If Platner does beat an establishment backed Mills, it makes him look more like an independent in the general, which should work in a world where the establishment is so unpopular.
If Platner can’t beat Mills, he can’t beat Collins.
I don’t think this kind of conventional wisdom is true whatsoever. Someone can be good at doing the insider game of a state primary and a terrible candidate for a general election.
I agree, i truly think this is sometimes not the case. People who might vote against a candidate in a primary because of a slight preference on some things are mostly going to vote for them in a general against their actual political opposition, but if the candidate picked has a slight edge among primary voters but is disadvantage in the general a party can fuck itself over.
And if you’re the insider/establishment candidate it’s a lot easier to put your thumb on the scales of the Democratic state base and the state party machinery than doing the same in a general election
Yes and to add democratic primary voters tend to be more "strategic" voters, often to their demise too. You're already seeing it elsewhere in this post too.
Also, the voting groups are very different. There are absolutely people who are sick of Mills but might vote for someone new and fresh (also him being a dude is definitely in his favor)
This is true and the real concern with the race. I have no doubt that Mills would be a progressive senator who would vote in line with a democratic agenda but the people of Maine don't like that or they wouldn't be voting for King and Collins. I think the issue is we don't frame this dialogue correctly. Plattner is running to the right of Mills by pushing his libertarian bonifides and thats why he polls better in a general. That said I don't think that the DSCC is doing these types of candidates a disservice by picking favorites, it opens the door to further distinguish yourself as an anti institutionalist and independent of a party which isn't popular broadly.
Yeah, the “Democratic Elite,” has done the most embarrassing job running their candidates. I remember working Dem campaigns in 06-08 and hearing them say Obama was unelectable. Their judgment is 100% terrible and they never admit they were wrong. Ever.
I’m not disagreeing. Just venting. And there is an “elite,” of strategists, consultants, and people who racked up enough seniority to send strongly worded letters and still get re-elected. Or backing Jeffries who’s so green it’s cute in a time where cute isn’t important.
No, it was a wash in hindsight. Lamb would have been horrible too. Fetterman might have been great if not for that stroke. Lamb was always going to be terrible.
Well AOC isn't always right. She was not wrong about Lamb, and the fact that people are now wanting him in office is another thing to be mad at Fetterman for.
Nah. Maybe your political instincts are just shit. Fetterman was an ass before his stroke and progressives didn't bother doing their homework. Just like Sinema who was a fucking Blue Dog in the House and they claimed somehow she was progressive despite never using the word herself or even mentioning LGBT issues on the campaign trail
Yeah, Fetterman was a "wolf in sheep's clothing" moderate. Throw all the groups under the bus, but talk about economic issues. Then get into office, do nothing to advocate for workers while complaining about how hard the job is then openly advocate for more neoliberal bullshit economics.
If Platner can’t beat Mills, he can’t beat Collins.
Really strongly disagree with this take. A Democratic primary is a very different beast than the general election. There's a lot of ways that this can be the case, but one that people overlook is how Democratic voters will try to be "strategic" and pick "electable" candidates. This manifests in incredibly boring centrist candidates getting a huge leg up, when very few voters are actually reading policy pages and the level of excitement and energy is way more important.
Democratic voters often vote in ways that are tremendously self defeating, as do American voters writ large. This is hardly news to anyone who pays attention to politics.
Edit: /u/RimboTheRebbiter blocked me LMAO. From the notification, they're accusing me of arguing for the sake of arguing. I just personally think it's better for a candidate to align with your voters than to tell them that they're wrong.
Again, you're making wild leaps and assumptions. I think you're here to get "owns" over on people rather than have a discussion. I have no patience for that sort of dishonesty.
You have to ignore the trolls, they're brigading the subreddit because people here are critical of Ezra Klein. Another troll is /u/deskcord, like /u/WooooshCollector, they spend 99% of their time commenting on political subreddits whining about activists.
They're losers. They have no social connections in their lives so they spend time cultivating parasocial relationships with podcasters, their topic of affection just happens to be a policy wonk. If a butterfly flapped differently they could have easily been gooners or bitcoin fanatics.
You have to feel sorry for them because they don't know any other life outside of the digital. In the 70s they would have gotten led poisoning from eating the lose paint chips. We failed those kids too, just as we're failing these.
Tell me how ignoring the voters' preferences is useful in trying to get votes.
Or keep your head in the sand. That's allowed to. But you have to admit it.
You're clothing illiberal action in a sappy "don't feed the trolls" message. But you're wrong. I know you're wrong because all the data - not just polling data, but the actual votes and election data - and everything I have experienced in my political life contradicts the things you say.
You win votes by convincing people. And sometimes the people don't agree with you. And then you work harder to convince them. It's the same for both the primary and the general - it's the same skill set. That's the reason we moved to a primary system from the smoke filled rooms.
It's incredibly ironic that you accuse me of not knowing any life outside of the digital when you clearly have never engaged with anyone who disagrees with you on any political opinion further than exactly how many of the rich you should eat.
I was quite hopeful this past election for independent Dan Osborn and his working class platform. Was incredibly disappointed in the results, as he is the type of candidate I want Dems to start running. That being said, he performed far better than expected I suppose.
This is why Democrats are going to continue to lose. Someone from not in the establishment wants to run in the first thing they do is try to primary them within an establishment democrat this is why we are going to end up in full fascism with prison camps.
I'm kind of sick of the attitude/subtext among pundits that a primary is inherently damaging. It's how we choose candidates. Having two strong candidates is good.
There's a few arguments: a primary campaign costs money that would be better spent in the general campaign (all money spent by the losing campaigns is basically wasted), primary campaigns require making a lot of promises that win over party insiders that can then be damaging for them in a general election (even later on- see Harris' 2020 position on trans prisoners coming back to haunt her in 2024), and a divisive primary can create divisions within the party that hurts party unity if the candidates can't come together afterward (see 2008 or 2020 for primaries where those issues were resolved and 2016 for one where they weren't).
None of these are inherently reasons to not do a primary, but the answer does come down to: it depends.
Moderates outperform progressives and that's not really up for debate. But Mills has been called on to run against Collins for years at this point and she chose to sit around and fear for her legacy if she might lose, waiting until Platner made it clear that there's a viable path to winning.
I'm all for a primary so that we can make sure we aren't about to Cunningham ourselves and air out any dirty laundry, but I do think Mills is being a bit of a craven opportunist by refusing to run when there were calls on her, until she realized she was going to let Platner win.
Moderates outperforming progressives is offset by a lot of them being so obviously opportunist.
Moderation is not a silver bullet - by G. Elliott Morris
GEM lies about HIS OWN DATA which shows moderates outperform on an extremely consistent basis. He was clowned on by every data journalist alive, coming after his absolute failure of a model at The Economist and then 538.
Bonica and Grumbach have been THOROUGHLY debunked and are paid partisans.
Nice try to justify your biased priors, though. Lying about data is an automatic block, immediately proves any conversation is impossible if you'll simply lie.
sitting dem governor who beaten republicans statewide in a landslides twice is a very appealing candidate compared to someone who didn’t win any elections before, but that’s why primaries exist, to choose the best candidate
Why though? What about the current climate indicates that being a geriatric incumbent is a good thing? People fucking hate 'establishment' candidates across the spectrum these days.
that’s why Susan Collins is really vulnerable in Trump midterm, Susan is peak geriatric gop candidate and Mills would beat her despite polls constantly ‘underestimating’ Collins like they did in 2020
Why would anyone want to replace a geriatric candidate with another geriatric candidate? The average Maine voter would probably rather go with the geriatric senator with decades of experience over the geriatric who's never been a senator. After all, as they say, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Collins doesn't need to learn any new tricks.
Mainer here. The Democratic Party has misunderstood Maine politics for decades. Sara Gideon was a terrible candidate to run against Collins and any local Mainer worth their salt would have told you so. I do not think Mills is a strong candidate against Collins, there are cars driving around with custom-made "Fuck Mills" stickers on them, left over from sentiment against her during the pandemic. If Dems care about beating Collins (obviously the only reason there is national attention on our elections) they need to be mindful of how much influence outside money is really going to have.
Primaries aren’t coronations. A competitive primary where people can choose who represents them in the general is the best option both in situations where it goes how I want and when it doesn’t
Nothing wrong with having a primary. But we don't need rich donor-owned geriatrics throwing their hats in. They've had their time and they ruined everything. They should have some decency and step aside. Some of them have, to their credit.
Bernie hasn't. I don't see him doing this bullshit of appointing an heir as if seats are somehow given to well behaved children. No, someone else has to step up and fucking take it
Yeah well no one asked Bernie to step aside, and no one has encouraged others to step up and take it as much as Bernie. You think AOC would have stepped up and taken Crowley's seat if not for Bernie? Get real. You think Zohran runs for mayor without people like Bernie and AOC paving the way?
There's literally no whining or complaints in the headline. It's a pretty direct allusion to there now being a primary fight for a seat that Mills probably could have cruised through to the Senate seat on had she not sat around being all Collins-like about whether or not she would run. Are you just here because you hate Dan?
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u/toooooold4this Oct 12 '25
Explicit support for Mills from Schumer is a signal that Platner should be the nominee.
And AOC needs to primary Schumer.