Graham Platner

Office Sought: United States Senate

District: All

Towns Served: All

About Graham Platner

Born in Blue Hill, and raised in Ellsworth and Sullivan, Graham is a lifelong Mainer. He is a Marine and U.S. Army veteran, oyster farmer, and chair of the Sullivan Planning Board.

After graduating high school during the height of the Iraq War, Graham snuck his birth certificate out of his father’s office to enlist in the Marine Corps.

After three tours in Iraq, Graham enrolled at George Washington University using the GI Bill, but quickly realized that his time in uniform was not over. So, in 2009, he joined the Maryland Army National Guard and was deployed to Afghanistan the following year.

Graham returned from Afghanistan and like many veterans, he struggled with undiagnosed PTSD and physical challenges that come from heavy infantry combat. He eventually moved back home to Maine where he used the resources from VA to get the help he needed.

After four tours overseas, Graham was deeply disillusioned with America’s failed foreign policy and endless wars and decided to focus on serving his local community.

In 2018, Graham started working on his friend’s small oyster farm in his hometown of Sullivan. He quickly felt deeply connected with the sea and the community. He eventually took over the oyster farm and built it into a business that produces high quality oysters.

Whether it was enlisting in the US Marine Corps, or coming back home to work in his community, or running for Senate, at the core of every decision Graham has made has been how he can best serve Maine.

Platform Issues:

• Ban billionaires from buying our elections
• Rebuild our failing healthcare system & pass universal health care
• Support Small Business and Break Up the Monopolies
• Stop the mass deportation machine and pass real immigration reform
• Defend our air, our water, our land and our climate
• Bring back federal support for building housing and ban hedge funds buying homes.
• Defend Medicare and Medicaid
• Protect Social Security – before it goes bankrupt
• End Billionaire Welfare and Pass a Cost-of-Living Tax Cut
• Uphold tribal sovereignty and self-determination
• Defend democracy and the Constitution
• Strengthen our working waterfront
• Support unions, and bring good union jobs to Maine
• Defend and support public schools
• Keep government out of our private lives; defend the right to choose
• Protect Maine’s economy: raise the federal minimum wage
• Fight for Equality for ALL
• End the War in Gaza
• End the failed War on Drugs
• Take on waste and corruption at the Pentagon; rebuild American shipbuilding
• No more pointless wars
• Address the childcare crisis
• Support Americans with disabilities
• Pay servicemen a fair wage; no more servicemen on food stamps
• Defend the VA and support our veterans
• Defend the Post Office and establish postal banking
• Pass term limits – and hold politicians to their term limits pledges

Priorities in Office

• We live with a political system designed to make some people rich and keep the rest of us settling for scraps. My first priority will be fixing that by ensuring that the ultra-wealthy pay their fairshare, and we lower taxes and costs for working people.
• We must also pass universal health care and fix our current healthcare system, which lines the pockets of Big Pharma execs by jacking up prices on the rest of us.
• Finally, we need to end the forever wars that send people overseas to die and waste trillions of tax payer dollars.