Challenger Graham Platner may have amassed a rare kinetic energy, but the moderate conservative has served the state for almost 30 years<\/p>\n
For three decades, Susan Collins has styled herself as a moderate conservative who delivers for Maine, even when it means defying Donald Trump<\/a>. But as the incumbent Republican seeks a sixth term, national Democrats see her as newly vulnerable \u2013 zoning in on the state as a clear path to reclaiming the Senate.<\/p>\n Collins, 73, will now face off against the presumptive Democratic nominee, Graham Platner, a 41-year-old marine veteran and oysterman with no national political experience and a controversial past<\/a>. Despite dredged-up racist, sexist and homophobic online posts \u2013 and a now-covered-up tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol \u2013 Platner continues to amass a rare kinetic energy that has seen hundreds of Mainers flock to town halls across the state to hear his gravelly voiced excoriation of Washington. His rise ultimately forced the state\u2019s two-term governor Janet Mills to suspend her primary bid<\/a>, citing dwindling financial resources.<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Challenger Graham Platner may have amassed a rare kinetic energy, but the moderate conservative has served the state for almost 30 years For three decades, Susan Collins has styled herself as a moderate conservative who delivers for Maine, even when it means defying Donald Trump. But as the incumbent Republican seeks a sixth term, national … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73671\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}