Graham Platner, a 41-year-old oyster farmer and military veteran, is Maine's presumptive Democratic Senate nominee challenging Republican Susan Collins. Once seen as a controversial outsider with a contested tattoo and inflammatory social media posts, Platner has galvanized the progressive base around a working-class platform demanding structural political change, though establishment Democrats initially backed his rival. Platner served two combat tours in Iraq (2005-2006) and a contractor stint in Afghanistan (2018), witnessing the human cost of forever wars and now advocates an anti-war foreign policy rooted in diplomacy over military intervention.