Sebastian Sahlman

Democratic United States Senate candidate for Maine Graham Platner held a talk on Brunswick’s Town Mall this Thursday, his fourth town hall in a series he is organizing across the state of Maine.

Platner, who announced his candidacy in August, is running against long-time Republican Senator Susan Collins, who is currently serving her fifth term. Platner, an oyster farmer and veteran, has gained strong support following an endorsement from Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. In the first quarter of his campaign, Platner received $3.2 million in campaign contributions from 80,000 individual donors.

Platner has campaigned on a platform of making Maine more affordable for working people, ending billionaire influence in government and elections, supporting unions, social security, Medicare and Medicaid access and raising the federal minimum wage.

As a crowd gathered in the early evening, Platner emerged onto the Town Mall gazebo and was greeted by a wide demographic of Brunswick residents, including Bowdoin students as volunteers and attendees.

One such volunteer was Isaac Cariani ’29, who became aware of Platner online when he was home over the summer in North Carolina and started volunteering for Platner once he came to Bowdoin. Cariani, alongside volunteers from the currently unofficial Bowdoin Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) chapter, helped make the talk as accommodating as possible for a large number of participants. This comes as Platner has received significant turnout in recent events across the state, even moving the location of this event from the Brunswick Hotel to Brunswick Town Mall due to what organizers described in an email to attendees “an overwhelming response.”

Platner received strong applause as he began his speech, which included a strong emphasis on his military service, the ongoing genocide in Gaza and reproductive rights. He received particularly strong crowd responses for his sharp critiques of Senator Collins and his emphasis on making Maine affordable for the working class.

“I will fight to protect and expand the Social Security that Mainers have earned. I’m going to fight to lower the cost of groceries, childcare, medications, and I will take on corporate greed and price gouging that drives up the prices of everything that we need to survive,” Platner said.

Platner ended the town hall by answering questions from the community, which were collected in advance from the crowd.

This event is significant as a chance to hear Platner talk in person, YDSA co-leader Turner Guzzle ’29 commented.

“I believe [Bowdoin students] should attend because getting to know a candidate and what they actually stand for and how they speak about it is, in my opinion, even more important than knowing their policies,” Guzzle said. “I believe by going out to hear [Platner] speak …  people will get a better understanding that … he’s actually someone who seems dedicated to what he’s talking about. He seems passionate about it. He seems like he genuinely wants to better our community, and he believes that his policies and leftist populist policies are the way forward.”

In addition to using this event to get to know Platner, Cariani discussed the importance of events such as these as opportunities for students to voice their own opinions and be better represented.

“I think everybody should attend … because a lot of it is him asking what the people want,” Cariani said. “So just being able to see and meet someone who could be representing you in person and tell them what you want to see in politics is an opportunity that you shouldn’t miss because our politics are supposed to represent the people, and it’s hard to represent the people you don’t know.”

After hearing Platner speak, Elliott Werner ’29, who is from nearby Portland, talked about what Platner’s campaign means to him as a young Mainer.

“I’ve lived in Maine my whole life, and I’ve watched it … become more and more unaffordable. It’s really refreshing to see someone who actually understands that and is standing up to the systems that have caused that change,” Werner said. “I would love to spend the rest of my life in Maine, but for a lot of my life, that seemed pretty unattainable just because of the reality of the state and the cost of living. However, I think what he’s standing for is making that seem a lot more hopeful … and it’s making my future look a little brighter.”