From what I’ve seen, polls seem to show Platner outperforming Mills in the general. The question honestly is whether *Mills* is worth the risk, especially with how old she is.
There's the question of how much early polls should be taken seriously, but notably, Platner is overperforming Mills vs Collins by a greater degree than Talarico was outperforming Crockett in general election matchups.
Platner reminds me of John Fetterman, the darling for Pennsylvania in 2022. Unfortunately he defeated Conor Lamb, who would have been a much better senator for Pennsylvania and in my opinion, for the whole country. I used to live in southern California, where we all got behind Katie Hill for a congressional race. She also had a despicable tattoo, and was a regrettable choice for Congress where her best friend was Matt Gaetz. To quote Rebecca Solnit, an election is a chess move, not a valentine.
Planter has been quite vocal about distancing himself specifically from Fetterman. If you listen to him speak for any length of time it's pretty obvious that he does at least care about the same things that democratic primary voters tend to care about. He isn't faking it. It's difficult to imagine him getting to Washington then immediately going against his base in the same way Fetterman has.
Unless Graham Platner repudiates everything he's said about foreign policy and/or has a massive stroke in the next six months I think this is overplayed. Fetterman was always more heterodox than progressive per se, and then had medical issues that clearly emphasized all the worst aspects of his personality. Most of the similarities are only skin deep (or a direct result of the fact that they have some of the same people working on their campaigns).
This feels like it completely ignores the fact that Platner is consistently out-polling Mills in general election matchups as well as head to head.
And it also ignores the fact that working class voters are less likely to be engaged with a June primary in March, which means Mills as the governor of the state is still going to have the name ID edge over him with that demographic.
Overall, this seems like you wanted an excuse to write another “Platner bad, actually” article and worked backwards from there.
I would be curious if there is some type of Simpsons paradox when looking at white male support for Platner across all voters vs registered dem only. If a blue collar white voter is still a registered democrat in 2026, that is likely a revealed preference for status quo politicians like Mills. So it wouldn’t surprise me that she outperforms Platner here. Blue collar white males though have been hemorrhaging from the Democratic Party for over a decade now. Does Platner connect better with independents and republicans in this group compared to Mills?
From what I’ve seen, polls seem to show Platner outperforming Mills in the general. The question honestly is whether *Mills* is worth the risk, especially with how old she is.
There's the question of how much early polls should be taken seriously, but notably, Platner is overperforming Mills vs Collins by a greater degree than Talarico was outperforming Crockett in general election matchups.
Platner reminds me of John Fetterman, the darling for Pennsylvania in 2022. Unfortunately he defeated Conor Lamb, who would have been a much better senator for Pennsylvania and in my opinion, for the whole country. I used to live in southern California, where we all got behind Katie Hill for a congressional race. She also had a despicable tattoo, and was a regrettable choice for Congress where her best friend was Matt Gaetz. To quote Rebecca Solnit, an election is a chess move, not a valentine.
Planter has been quite vocal about distancing himself specifically from Fetterman. If you listen to him speak for any length of time it's pretty obvious that he does at least care about the same things that democratic primary voters tend to care about. He isn't faking it. It's difficult to imagine him getting to Washington then immediately going against his base in the same way Fetterman has.
Unless Graham Platner repudiates everything he's said about foreign policy and/or has a massive stroke in the next six months I think this is overplayed. Fetterman was always more heterodox than progressive per se, and then had medical issues that clearly emphasized all the worst aspects of his personality. Most of the similarities are only skin deep (or a direct result of the fact that they have some of the same people working on their campaigns).
This feels like it completely ignores the fact that Platner is consistently out-polling Mills in general election matchups as well as head to head.
And it also ignores the fact that working class voters are less likely to be engaged with a June primary in March, which means Mills as the governor of the state is still going to have the name ID edge over him with that demographic.
Overall, this seems like you wanted an excuse to write another “Platner bad, actually” article and worked backwards from there.
I would be curious if there is some type of Simpsons paradox when looking at white male support for Platner across all voters vs registered dem only. If a blue collar white voter is still a registered democrat in 2026, that is likely a revealed preference for status quo politicians like Mills. So it wouldn’t surprise me that she outperforms Platner here. Blue collar white males though have been hemorrhaging from the Democratic Party for over a decade now. Does Platner connect better with independents and republicans in this group compared to Mills?