The brash Maine military veteran whose U.S. Senate dream has been rocked by myriad scandals is revamping his campaign staff despite two new polls giving him a huge lead.
As part of his reset Graham Platner has named longtime friend Kevin Brown as his manager in the wake of his former director’s resignation.
Brown’s past campaign work includes the presidential bids of Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama, according to Politico.
The campaign has also brought on an in-house attorney, as well as compliance firm Spruce Street Consulting, which has ties to a number of “progressives” including Bowdoin College grad and leading NYC mayoral candidate Democrat socialist Zohran Mamdani.
Amid fallout from Platner’s controversial years-old social media posts, his campaign began sending non-disclosure agreements to staffers last week, according to his former top political director, Genevieve McDonald, who told Politico she declined to sign one.
“The campaign offered me $15,000 to sign a NDA,” McDonald told the outlet. “I did not accept the offer. I certainly could have used the money. I quit my job to work on Platner’s campaign, believing it was something different than it is.”
Platner’s campaign called the payment a standard severance.
From outlandish Reddit posts to a Nazi-like tattoo to once calling all cops bastards, the ex-Marine has had everything thrown at him but Janet Mills.
Until the latest polls that is.
The UNH survey shows that Mills, the incumbent, term-limited Maine governor who now has her eyes on the senate seat held by five-term Republican Susan Collins, has roughly half the support as Platner.
A second poll by senate Republicans shows Platner with a similar lead, 46 to Mills’ 25 percent.
Days after Mills announced her job plans, the first reports of Platner’s controversial past came to light.
If the Democrat power elite hoped that they would bring Platner to his war-torn, multiple-combat-mission knees in favor of Mills, they were apparently sorely strafed.
Of 510 likely Democrat primary voters captured in the poll, 58 percent said they would back Platner. Mills garnered 24 percent.
With an encouraging poll such as that one might question whether Platner actually needs to shake anything up.
Despite his alleged troubles, he had a big crowd of more than 500 show up for his campaign town meeting Wednesday in Ogunquit.
Platner has begun running a YouTube video featuring a Q&A with the Ogunquit supporters.
He is also on Instagram with a pitch describing Maine as “unlivable for the working class.”
His campaign recently began running an ad on MSNBC going after Mills for her allegedly running the state with a “business as usual” approach, according to Axios.
