Platner, whose campaign was hit by series of negative headlines, to face Susan Collins in key midterm contest
Graham Platner, a Marine veteran, oyster farmer and progressive activist, has scaled a mountain of personal controversies to win the Democratic nomination for the US Senate in Maine.
His victory on Tuesday caps a remarkable rise for a candidate who has never held elected office and whose campaign was shadowed by negative headlines that might have ended a more conventional political career.
Instead, in a result that would have seemed improbable only a year ago, Platner emerged battered but unbroken, convincing Democratic voters that his flaws are forgivable or unimportant in a year dominated by economic anxiety and anger at Donald Trump.
“If you believe, as I do, that we can change our politics and our country then you must also believe that people can change,” Platner, 41, told supporters in Blue Hill. “And the reason I believe is that is because I have lived it. And the reason I have lived it is because of my wife.”
