Things are not looking good for the Gram Plattner campaign, and new polling shows that he may be in for a major defeat if he squares off against Susan Collins in the general election. And we've got more. But what are your $0.02 here? [00:00:17] Yeah, I don't believe the poll. So you're going to read the poll, and then I'm going to question the people who did the poll. I think they're bad guys even though they're on our side. Theoretically. And then I want to have a real discussion with you on. Forget staying in the race. [00:00:32] Who who do you think you support in the race? And I support in the race and have a real discussion about it, because I think that this stinks to high heaven. But tell us the facts, and then we'll discuss it. Okay. Democratic group Emily's list has released new data gauging Maine voters thoughts [00:00:52] on Plattner in a head to head race against Republican Senator Susan Collins, before testing a matchup between Plattner and Collins, the poll summarizes pro platinum messaging, including his military service and his promise to fight the billionaire class, and makes politics [00:01:09] and make politics work for regular people. Along with likely Republican attacks about the Communist label and his comments about police, with that information, Collins leads Plattner 51% to 42%. That gap grew to 19 points after voters were provided with more [00:01:29] quotes from Plattner Reddit posts, and when voters were provided with a lengthy apology response. He only narrowed the gap by five points. Now, Emily's list has a goal of electing Democratic women, and they have endorsed Plattner opponent Janet Mills in the primary. [00:01:48] The most recent major poll on that primary, which was conducted before it was revealed that 20 years ago, Plattner got a tattoo resembling a symbol used by the Nazis, showed Plattner was up by 34 points. Another poll from a lesser known pollster, SoCal strategies, [00:02:06] conducted during the week Platina's tattoo and Reddit history were made public and in the news showed Mills ahead by five points when Platina's tattoo was mentioned to respondents in that poll. Miller's lead grew to 30 points. [00:02:22] To make matters worse for Platina's campaign, over the last few weeks, several top staff members from his campaign have left, including his campaign manager, political director and finance director. Now that primary is June 9th, 2026. [00:02:39] So Jank, I guess the question is, of course you have reservations about that Emily's list poll, but there is a lot of time here. Do you think he should stay in the race? Yeah, definitely. I, I all of his opponents are what make me support him more. [00:02:56] So I'm going to come back to Emily's list, which I have massive doubts and skepticism about. But first, look, I want to give you guys context. If I thought there was a guy in the race who was going to hurt our chances of winning, especially against Susan Collins. [00:03:11] When we absolutely need to win the Senate, we need to win Congress back. And the guy is talking about how. Oh, yeah, the right wing white voters in Maine are stupid or racist. I mean, you've heard the show for the last, year, two years, etc. [00:03:27] We've been telling you, don't do that. Don't do that. That's a really bad idea. Don't attack the voters. Instead, you know, go after the politicians and make that distinction clear. ET cetera. So if we thought he was a bad guy or. [00:03:42] I mean, let me speak for myself, not we. If I thought he was a bad guy, then I would tell you. Oh, yeah, that's terrible. And that would hurt him in the election, etcetera, etcetera. But I don't get the sense that he's a bad guy. I get the sense that he was frustrated. He said that stuff. [00:03:59] And and at this point that doesn't back that at all. Now there's two different things. Whether he meant it and is problematic to begin with on all the different charges. Then the second thing is, even if he didn't mean it or he meant it at the time, [00:04:14] but that's because he was, you know, going through PTSD or whatever that you've got. People grow, people mature, people evolve. Right. But now it has the right position. But still, you're worried that it might hurt his chances of winning and our chances of winning. Okay. So these are all legitimate questions. [00:04:29] Right. And but at the same time, like, if I thought. Yeah. So from my perspective on those questions, I don't think it's necessarily going to. I get that he's going to do damage. Right. But I'm not convinced that he that Mills is a better candidate. [00:04:48] And I'm certainly not convinced that he meant that stuff and still means it secretly today. If I thought that, I would have no interest in him at all. Okay. And the attack against the cops. We were all frustrated about cops back in the day when he was frustrated about Backups at this point. [00:05:05] You know, our stance, which is easy, which is we're against crime. That's not hard. And so if I thought this guy's soft on that again, it wouldn't be my inclination to back him. Right. But he's been running a very populist campaign calling out the establishment, [00:05:21] calling out the donors, calling out everybody he needs to call out. Right. And all of a sudden, this giant vat of oppo research is dumped in his lap and they're like, ha ha, we got you. You're smeared. You're canceled. That's it. And Jordan, where my skepticism comes in on this poll is all of a sudden Emily's [00:05:39] list, which I think is one of the worst organizations in in politics, comes in and goes, oh, we did a poll. It shows he would be much worse than our candidate, who is totally backed by all corporate donors and the establishment. Oh, you have to trust us. We have our your best intentions in mind. [00:05:57] Here we are again, putting a giant hatchet in the back of a progressive or populist or outsider or anyone wanting change. And that is the main role of Emily's list. I think the rest of it is a cover story, a total operation. I don't know what they've done to help women's rights. I've never heard them in any fight where they mattered at all, but where I [00:06:16] have heard them a thousand times. Jordan is back when we were starting Justice Democrats, and throughout all this entire time before the crypto guys and before AIPAC, if a progressive was running Emily's list was going to support the establishment candidate opposed to them in the primary, and then do everything they could [00:06:35] to defeat progressives. So I'm not really that interested in a poll from Emily's list, which I think has an excellent chance of being just utterly fake, period. That's my view. Okay, now I'm pretty harsh on it, obviously. What do you think? [00:06:51] Yeah, I mean, some of what you said I agree with. I think Emily's list has used gender politics in this country over the past couple decades as a wedge. They've used it as a cudgel. [00:07:06] I mean, they really tried to weaponize it when Bernie was running to support the establishment. Totally with you. They're now putting even just putting that whole poll aside, you know, if you want to put weight in that SoCal strategies poll that also found that [00:07:25] Plattner was behind, that's concerning. And I think we need to put ourselves in the minds of the average person, right. We think deeply about these issues. Most voters do. Not many vote maybe, maybe, maybe many. We'll go with that. [00:07:40] But when they hear that their one of their potential candidates has a tattoo that resembles a Nazi symbol that has and they will strip, you know, Jank, you ran for office, they will strip the context of his Reddit posts to make him seem seem even worse. [00:07:56] And in the framing and attack ads and the media, they will continue to hammer these points that he said things that he now regrets online Years ago. They're not going to be nuanced or understanding or forgiving, or provide context for what he was in mentally, physically, professionally at those times. [00:08:18] I think he's he's apologized for him. I think everyone should have a little bit of grace for that kind of stuff, but that's not how they're going to portray it in the media. And if he's going to be subject to these attacks for months, again, this primary is in June. What concerns me, not his policies, it's that voters will be subject [00:08:35] to these distractions. And at the end of the day, he might either lose the primary or lose against Collins. That's a fickle state. We know this Maine is a is a weird a weird state to run in. It's, you know, somewhat reliably Democratic in presidential elections. [00:08:52] But somehow Susan Collins has held on to that job. So my my thought is, hey, you've got a ton of time to stand up a campaign, find somebody without that baggage who will run on those same things and start building that up now, [00:09:08] rather than just crossing our fingers and hope it's it's Plattner and then hope he withstands that, that barrage of attack ads in the general. Yeah. So, I hear you on all that. Those are all reasonable points. But here's my pushback on all of that. [00:09:25] Okay. So first, again, real quick, because I don't want to get distracted by Emily's list, but we lost Roe v Wade while Emily's list was fighting for women's rights. Where were you? Oh, no. We sent out a bunch of fundraising emails. [00:09:41] I'm sure you did. I'm sure you did. But you didn't win that fight. You didn't win any of the fights. But whenever there's an issue of identity politics, Emily's list is at the front of the line. No, you have to vote for Hillary. No, it doesn't matter that she's backed by Oracle corporations. Shut up and vote for the woman. Right. [00:09:56] And there's other organizations, and their job is to say, shut up and vote for fill in the blank X, Y, z different groups, okay. And their job and they are funded by the establishment to destroy progressives, so they use identity politics in the most grotesque way [00:10:11] to target anyone outside the system. So here comes a brother who is so firmly and aggressively outside the system and fighting for the average guy. And all of a sudden, here comes all the worst people in Washington, attacking him in such a voracious way that it makes me want to go, all right, I'm [00:10:27] going to quadruple down on Graham Platner. Okay. And now you say, okay. Well, Jake, don't do that out of spite. We need to win the race. Of course, of course. So, Jordan, let me make the case for why I think, that he's the better candidate. Okay, number one, you've got, the what I'm [00:10:45] going to call the Mamdani phenomenon. So Mamdani was attacked just as viciously as Platner is. Now, they didn't have as much material on him. All they had on him was, he's Muslim and he's a communist. [00:11:01] But, I mean, he's an Mamdani is an actual socialist, whereas Platner is neither a communist nor a Nazi. Right. So there's actually no substance behind it. Oh, so they're going to attack him that way. So what, they attack Mamdani that way. So in reality, that actually helped Mamdani. [00:11:18] Why did it help Mamdani? Even though mainstream media hit him with a nuke, they threw every dirty trick on him. They went and searched for every. Oh, he was in a rap song. This he was that he once didn't help a, you know, a grandmother across the street. [00:11:33] He wasn't even aware of. I got they they nuked him and he survived. And he won. It made him stronger. Why? Because they accidentally put a spotlight on the race. And once you put a spotlight on the race and people start paying attention, our policies and our style again, left wing populists is so much more [00:11:54] popular than anything else in the country. So the minute there's a spotlight on the race, people go, oh, really? You guys are fighting against the establishment? Oh, you guys hate the corruption. You guys hate the wars. You guys are trying to fight for higher wages, lower drug prices, etc.. Wait, I came to hate you all of a sudden. I love you, right? [00:12:11] And so that spotlight helped. Mamdani didn't hurt him. And if they nuked him twice, it would have helped him twice as much. So I'm not sure that this is going to hurt him at all. Number two, there's cancel culture, blowback. Okay. So especially with independent voters, but maybe even some right wing voters, [00:12:29] when you go to them and you go, okay, Susan Collins is a beautiful member of the establishment. She loves all of her corporate donors, loves money in politics, and loves Israel. And so you should all bow your head to Susan Collins, all of you independents and right wing voters. And the other guy is he should be canceled. [00:12:48] He's it looks like he's fighting for you guys, but the establishment hates him. And he was a Nazi on the right, and he was a communist on the left. And he hates cops, and he hates people who hate cops. And he hates everyone. And you should hate him. I think a lot of people are going to go. Really? [00:13:04] Tell me more about this guy. Because now I'm kind of interested because once the bad guys and the evil forces come against someone and you bring the spotlight, people start to look into it and go, oh, maybe that guy is actually looking out for us, and that's why everybody's throwing dirt on him. [00:13:21] And so in the last part of it, Jordan, is I don't think Mills is going to win. Maine is a graveyard for corporate Democrats. How many corporate Democrats have we run against? Susan Collins? And every time morons like Chuck Schumer and literally everyone in mainstream media [00:13:39] who are all biased, corrupt and dumb as a brick come in and go, oh, support the corporate candidate. They'll beat Susan Collins. We're going to win Republicans in the suburbs. We've outraised them. We have all this corporate cash, and people in Maine love it. And we're going to beat Susan Collins. [00:13:55] And I've seen that movie 200 times and they've never beaten her. So if Chuck Schumer and I'm not just putting it on him, but the entire establishment comes and tells me to back Mills. Well, then I think, well, that's a near guaranteed loss. [00:14:10] So why don't I try something else? Now to your point. Okay, let's just find a rando in Maine now and restart an entire campaign and have that person be left wing politics. But what difference does it make, Jordan? Then they're going to find dirt on him. They're gonna be like, oh, did you know in 1987, he brought [00:14:26] bought groceries from the checkout clerk that was white and not Asian. So he's a racist against Asians or whatever nonsense they're going to make up about that guy. There isn't a single populist that they won't dig up dirt on. So what's the difference? [00:14:42] Well, I think it's the severity of what they dig up. And to go to your mom, Donny, point the attacks that they levied against him, we all just laughed them off because they were ridiculous. Oh, he tried to launch a rap career. Like, who cares? [00:14:59] You know, like, obviously the baseless, anti-Semitic stuff that we saw from the pro-Israel lobby didn't resonate because people could just see that. He never said that. That's why all of the framing was why won't you denounce this specific phrase? [00:15:15] Well, he's never said it. Why are you asking him? People saw through that here. It's. It's him. It's him doing. It's him saying these things. It's him with the tattoo. That's tough. And there's also a concern that this might just be the start. [00:15:31] Like this again, this primary is in June. I don't think campaigns typically dump all of their oppo right away. So I think it is a concern from some people that it may continue to mount and snowball and more will come. Look, Jake, there's the population of Maine is 1.4 million. [00:15:48] It had over 800,000 people vote in the presidential election in 2024. I don't think it's necessarily plucking a rando. There's indivisible groups, there's grassroots community groups. Our revolution still exists in some pockets of the country. You know, maybe there's a there's a progressive elected official in a in [00:16:05] a city or in the state legislature. It's not that hard to find somebody who could run, who knows it doesn't have like, again, a tattoo or had a tattoo that resembles a Nazi symbol or has said the things that he said. [00:16:21] I'm not saying that people can't change or that he makes mistakes. I do think on the tattoo thing, it was an instance of a dumb troop who just picked out a symbol because he thought it looked cool, like I'm willing to to have some grace there. But I think in the average mind of a voter, they're going to be off put by that. [00:16:38] And the initial polling between Platner and Collins in a general, if that, if we are to believe that was 6 or 7 points, which is about the difference in the presidential election in 2024. So look, if you and one other thing that he said he was criticizing [00:16:58] were rural people in Maine as stupid, that is going to come. I think that might even be the most damaging thing of everything, because then you're insulting the voters. That's hard to overcome. So look, I don't really have a strong affinity for this guy. [00:17:14] Like, I think his platform is good. And we should see more platforms like that in politics across the country. But I'm sure there's at least one other person in Maine who doesn't have that baggage and also shares those ideals. There's likely many because we know those views are popular. [00:17:30] So all I'm saying is because we have like seven months until this primary, that's a lot of time. Look, people were saying a new campaign should be stood up in three months instead of Kamala Harris. If people were willing to make the argument looking at you [00:17:47] that within three months you can stand up a presidential campaign, you can have seven months to stand up a Senate race. Yeah, it's super theoretical. I'm not going to. The guy was kicking ass until all this cancerous, toxic dirt. So. And I don't want to reward the dirt, I hate it. [00:18:04] So let's last thing, guys. Let's break down the two things that you said there on the tattoo to. Every time we mention it, I feel like we get independent voters backing him. And again, maybe even some right wingers. Not because they're Nazis, right? But because the the the it's so obvious they're trying to cancel it. [00:18:23] Like you're saying like everybody's saying he's way too left wing. He's calling the right wing stupid and racist. So that's why he's a right wing Nazi. That makes no sense. It makes no sense at all. And the more people hear that, the more they're going to think this is cancel [00:18:39] culture BS. How do I spell his name? How do I get on board with can I volunteer for this guy? Okay, so not because of the tattoo, but because of the cancel culture BS surrounding the tattoo. Okay. Now the second thing is wait wait wait. Now, I agree with you, Jordan, that calling the voters stupid, [00:18:57] whether the right wing Republican or not, or rural voters or is terrible. We've been saying that for a long time here on TV. Right? So. But wait a minute. We're being told by the establishment that that's a terrible thing, and it automatically disqualifies you. [00:19:14] Hasn't Jasmine Crockett called white right wing voters stupid and racist? Approximately 200 times? Well, the establishment isn't saying that that was in his Reddit history. That'll likely emerge in attack ads. I mean, think. [00:19:32] So should we not run Jasmine Crockett? Because she's done. Because she's said the same things that we think is the most damaging for planner? No, I think it's different when you're running statewide and you need those rural votes versus a metropolitan area in Dallas. - It's a totally different voter base. - That's totally fair. [00:19:50] Okay. And a good point by Jordan. But at the same time, the same people who love Jasmine Crockett are telling me that those are unacceptable things to say. Well, apparently they became unacceptable two days ago because before that was identity politics that the establishment loved. [00:20:06] I'm not trying to criticize Jasmine Crockett. I'm just telling you that's a thing that a lot of Democrats have said tons and tons and tons of Democrats have said, and we were the ones fighting against it. And now all of a sudden they claim, oh, insulting the right wing voters is the worst thing you could do. [00:20:22] Really? You guys think that? Well, I'm glad you've surrendered to us and that you. I want apologies from everyone in the establishment and every left wing show and everyone out on the planet saying the Young Turks are right. You shouldn't insult the voters. When am I going to get that? [00:20:38] Oh, you're not going to get that because it isn't about that. It's about making sure that they put a hatchet in this guy's back and. Yeah. No, it's it's for me. Jordan. Undeniable hatchet job. And the more you reward hatchet jobs, the more hatchet jobs you'll get. [00:20:57] So I'm thinking of signing up to help them. I knew we would have a good conversation on this topic. All right, there you go. Mission accomplished. 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