Platner's attacks on what he calls the oligarchy are a central pillar of his campaign.Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesIn June 2024, Graham Platner made a modest purchase with outsize significance. The owner of a half-acre plot of land next to his Sullivan, Maine home had passed away a few years prior. County records show Platner bought it from her estate; real estate listings put the price at $6,000.Platner's attacks on what he calls the oligarchy are a central pillar of his campaign.Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesFor most politicians, an undeveloped parcel—assessed at about $30,000 by the county—would barely register on a balance sheet. That’s certainly true for Susan Collins, the five-term Republican senator Platner is hoping to unseat in November, who declares at least $4.2 million in assets on her financial disclosures. But for Platner, a veteran and oyster farmer married to a former teacher and running a tear-down-the-oligarchy campaign amid a flood of controversies and scandal, that small patch of Maine woods represents about 10% of his estimated net worth today. Forbes reviewed real estate records, interviews and Platner’s financial disclosures to estimate that the 41-year-old is worth about $300,000. More than half of that is equity in his home, which has grown alongside the Covid-era surge in coastal Maine real estate prices. The rest is largely that additional plot of land, his wife’s pension and oyster farming equipment he values at between $50,000 and $100,000. Platner presents a working-class, salt-of-the-earth image. “We don’t have money left over,” he told The New York Times in a recent interview, in which he claimed his annual household income is around $60,000. “We’re not saving for retirement.” The flood of profiles on his upstart campaign has complicated that story: His grandfather is a famous architect. His father is a lawyer who loaned him almost all the money used to buy his home; His mother is an entrepreneur and restaurant owner who buys his oysters. His parents sent him to a private high school and helped pay for infertility treatment in Norway for him and his wife—Amy Gertner, a former teacher—when the Department of Veterans Affairs wouldn’t cover it in the U.S.What’s clear from Platner’s disclosures is that he and Gertner are not sitting on, or hauling in, huge money today. Their largest source of income: $4,800 monthly checks from the V.A., compensation for injuries he sustained on multiple combat tours. “I’ve got a couple herniated disks, my shoulder’s a wreck, my knees bother me…” he told a local Maine outlet in October. “I was also diagnosed with PTSD.” Twelve of those checks would total $57,600 a year, virtually all the income Platner said they bring in.The oyster business doesn’t represent much additional cash flow. Platner started farming shellfish in 2018, and while the company forms the backdrop of his campaign launch ad, he reported just $5,001 in business income on his disclosure. Campaign spokespeople have told multiple Maine outlets that he reinvests his profits into the business rather than take a salary. Platner and Gertner in November 2025.AP Photo/Robert F. BukatyGertner could have been making something like $60,000 as an elementary school teacher with 15 years of experience, but in 2024 she left teaching, reportedly burnt out. Her pension, which she won’t be able to access until she’s 65, is likely worth around $50,000 today, Forbes estimates. Since then she has worked for Platner’s oyster farm, her sister’s catering business and, most recently, her husband’s campaign, which has paid her nearly $30,000 since September, Federal Election Commission records show.After growing up in Maine, Platner enlisted in the Marines in 2003. Between then and 2011, he deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan four times, with stints at George Washington University in between. While overseas, he got a skull and crossbones tattoo that he says he did not realize was a Nazi insignia; he covered it up after criticism during his campaign.Platner says that in the mid 2010s, after returning to the U.S., he was in “a pretty dark place” with undiagnosed PTSD. Out of this period come many of the allegations that have dogged Platner throughout his Senate run, including offensive and incendiary Reddit posts and stories about physical altercations or other troubling behavior with some ex-girlfriends. Platner has acknowledged and apologized for the posts and some of the alleged behavior in relationships. He denies the physical altercation allegations levied by one ex-girlfriend who works in GOP politics, calling them “politically motivated.” In his telling, what pulled him out of that dark place was free healthcare from the V.A. and oyster farming in Sullivan starting in 2018. “My wife and I recognize the life we’ve been able to build has come from a lot of luck,” he told the Times. “But on top of that is also my V.A. health care and my V.A. pension. That’s the baseline that allows all this to happen. If it wasn’t for the V.A. health care, I wouldn’t have had the freedom to start a business, to move back to my hometown.”Platner campaigned recently with democratic socialist Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.Sophie Park/BloombergHis biggest financial move also came toward the end of that period: He purchased a four bedroom, 1,800 square foot home in Sullivan (2024 population: 1,246) in June 2017. The price tag was $205,000, a county official confirmed. He put down $5,000, borrowing the rest from his father, who he has since been paying back to the tune of $954 per month. As a defense against claims that family money benefitted him, Platner claims that his dad gave him “a much higher interest rate” than he could have gotten from the bank. But such payments, assuming a 30-year loan, would imply an interest rate of about 4%, Forbes estimates. According to Freddie Mac, the average rate nationwide on a 30-year loan in June 2017 was 3.91%—meaning his dad didn’t give him a sweetheart deal or a bad one. Forbes estimates Platner still owes about $160,000 against the house. That purchase turned out to be a good bet. Maine home prices have increased 111% on average in the last decade, more than all but two states. Two Sullivan-area real estate agents (who—small town—both said they knew Platner’s parents personally) said that a $205,000 home in 2017, even an old one that isn’t directly on the water in a small town, would be worth well over $300,000 today thanks to the influx of interest in the state post-pandemic. Platner says he wouldn’t be able to afford his home at its current value. “That is absolutely the truth for so many people here,” says Ryan Swanson, a broker at Pemetic Purveyors who met Bronson Platner at a zydeco music event. “There’s just so much generational change in how things are affordable to live here—people who have worked here generationally and lived here generationally for years can no longer really afford to do that.” In response to a request for comment on his finances, a Platner campaign spokesperson said that Forbes’ valuation of his home is too high and suggested using its appraised value, $214,500. They also suggested a lower valuation, $16,000, for Gertner’s pension.As Platner built a business and a more stable life, which also included chairing Sullivan’s town planning board and working as harbormaster, he married Gertner in 2023. She still has a bit of student debt, between $15,000 and $50,000 per Platner’s later disclosures. The couple’s efforts to have kids, which included travel to Norway where IVF treatment is cheaper, were the subject of a profile in a Maine newspaper in January. Tragically, they announced a miscarriage in April. Platner announced his campaign last August. Despite a number of scandals—including, allegedly, sexting with other women early on in his marriage—he’s so far been unstoppable, even driving Maine’s 78-year-old incumbent governor Janet Mills, the favorite of the national party, to suspend her campaign. On Tuesday, he’ll likely lock up the nomination. If Platner hangs on and defeats one of the most entrenched incumbents in the Senate—the only Republican representing a state Kamala Harris won in 2024—he’ll win himself a $174,000 senatorial salary, plus retirement benefits like a 401(k)-style account and a generous pension. That would transform his finances almost as dramatically as he says he wants to transform America, with proposals for universal healthcare, term limits for Congress and steep tax hikes on the wealthy. “We’re at a point in our politics right now where we really need to be trying something different,” he said in October. “Nobody’s happy with this. Nobody’s looking around feeling like ‘Oh, yeah, this is really working for me as a Mainer.’”