Establishment Attempts to Paint Platner as 'Rich Kid,' Ignoring 'Ultra Wealthy' Susan Collins' Millions

In an extensive New York Times profile and interview published Friday and Saturday, the newspaper dug into what it called US Senate candidate Graham Platner's "complex class story" and asked how he can consider himself part of the "working class" considering his relatively privileged background.

The presumptive Democratic Maine candidate scoffed at the line of questioning as he pointed to the wide gap between his financial situation and that of people who have questioned his authenticity—as well as that of his opponent, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

"I get a chuckle out of the fact that a lot of folks in this political system who come from incredible amounts of privilege and wealth are the first ones to be like, 'Are you really working class? You’re just out there not making a lot of money and working on the ocean, but your dad was a small-town attorney,'" Platner told Lulu Garcia-Navarro, host of the Times' podcast The Interview. "Does that mean that you can’t actually represent working people?"

As the Times reported Friday, Platner is "the son of a Dartmouth College-educated lawyer, the grandson of a famed Connecticut architect, and a graduate of a private high school," with a mother who owns an "upscale restaurant." His family and his in-laws contributed financial help when Platner and his wife purchased their home and when they pursued in-vitro fertilization in Norway, having found the treatment unaffordable under the United States' for-profit healthcare system.

Platner, who is a first-time political candidate and a Marine combat veteran, owns an oyster farm, and according to his financial disclosure forms, the Times reported, "The bulk of his income appears to come from the nearly $60,000 in tax-free disability benefits he qualifies for each year after serving four combat tours."

The Times noted that both Republicans and Democrats who had supported Platner's primary opponent, Gov. Janet Mills, have attacked him over his background and suggested he is wealthier than he lets on.

One Mills supporter, former Maine Democratic Party chair and corporate lobbyist Tony Buxton, was quoted as saying, “This is not a salt-of-the-earth guy coming up from a hardscrabble existence." Buxton is with the firm Preti Flaherty, which represents a company that aims to build a data center in Maine; Platner supports a nationwide moratorium on artificial intelligence data centers.

Contrary to Buxton's remarks, according to financial disclosures, Platner would be the fifth-least wealthy US senator should he be elected in November. His and his wife's combined net worth is below $100,000.

Ryan Grim, co-founder of Drop Site News, wondered whether the Times would ever send "three reporters to report on the kind of life Susan Collins has lived versus Graham Platner the last 20 years."

"Tally the private planes, very nice restaurants, millions in wealth accumulation, and stack them next to each other and compare," he suggested. "That would be balanced."

According to Collins' financial disclosures, the five-term Republican senator's current net worth is $9.6 million, with up to $1.8 million directly in the bank last year. More than $342,000 of her wealth comes from interest and dividends from one of the best-performing stock portfolios in the Senate—a portfolio that is in her husband's name, a spokesperson told the Times.

Collins has opposed a ban on stock trading for members of Congress and their spouses.

The senator's financial disclosures also show that the $4.8 million she holds in corporate stocks include Amazon, United Health, and Visa—a company that would directly benefit from Collins' vote this past week against protecting consumers from overdraft fees.

“You could make $25 million a year in this country, you’re way closer to any of the billionaires."

While the National Republican Senatorial Committee's (NRSC) recently asserted that Platner is an "out-of-touch rich kid," the Democrat's campaign told the Times that his Republican opponent is "ultra wealthy."

"I don't think you could come up with a better avatar for the long-serving, self-enriching establishment politician than Susan Collins, who raises an immense amount of money outside of the state of Maine," he told Garcia-Navarro. "She takes an immense amount of money from [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee]. She takes an immense amount of money from special interest groups and fossil fuel companies, and she has a very high-performing stock portfolio. I think a lot of people look at that in Maine and say, 'I don't think that that is actually the politics I want representing me."

Despite the NRSC's attack on Platner as a "rich kid," polls and data suggest that many of the 41-year-old candidate's peers can relate to his personal financial background, with millennials reporting in numerous surveys that their lives are more financially precarious than their parents' were at their age, due to rising costs and debt.

“It’s a lot harder for young people today to save up for markers of the American Dream than it was for previous generations,” Joanne Hsu, director of the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers, told CNBC last year.

According to the Times and his detractors in the political establishment, wrote Maine-based writer Andy O'Brien, "Graham is this privileged rich kid, but he needs help paying for healthcare and housing. How is that not relatable?"

"I’ve been to a number of Platner’s town halls and one of the most common themes are older Mainers talking about the lack of economic opportunities for their adult children and grandchildren," O'Brien wrote. "Many of these young people are still living at home, even though they have jobs, because they can’t afford to rent or buy a home in Maine. Many of them struggle without affordable healthcare and childcare to allow them to work. At a recent town hall in Appleton, a local teacher told Platner that she had been teaching for 30 years in the area and still had $100,000 in student loan debt that kept compounding interest."

The Times reporters appeared taken aback by Platner's definition of "working class," one that the newspaper called "an expansive interpretation."

“My definition of working class these days is essentially anybody who makes money from wages,” he told the Times. “If you work for a living and you go out and put in hours and you pay taxes just like everyone else, I think that’s quite fair.”

He alluded to his exchange with the reporters in a conversation with The Lever's David Sirota before the articles came out.

While his grandfather was a successful architect, he suggested, the family's financial prosperity hasn't been carried down through subsequent generations.

"My mom is still working because she has no money," he said. "And we're trying to figure out, quite frankly, if she can't sell her restaurant, she's got no retirement. My wife and I, we're not broke, but there's no money at the end of the month."

"You could make $25 million a year in this country, you are way closer to somebody living in poverty than any of the billionaires," he told Sirota. "And these New York Times reporters were like, 'Well, that's a really expansive vision of 'working class.' I'm like, 'You know what else is expansive? Wealth inequality.' Because all of us don't own anything, and a couple people own damn near everything."

To Garcia-Navarro, he said: "You are working class if you make your money from work and wages. The world of wealth disparity has become so intense that there are just so many people now who are sitting on so much money who do not work. They make money off their investments. They make money off their wealth."

"I know it’s an expansive definition of 'working class,'" he added, "but I think you need to have an expansive definition when we have the most expansive margin of wealth inequality in the history of the country."