Sam Stein and Lauren Egan give their takes on the first ads from Maine Senate candidates Graham Platner and Susan Collins. The two campaigns couldn’t be more different. Platner comes out aggressively, launching a hard-hitting populist message that goes straight at Collins’ record and frames the race as part of a broader fight over power, Trump, and the direction of the country. Meanwhile, Susan Collins responds with a very different strategy: a nostalgic, local-focused ad centered on a decade-old infrastructure win in Maine. Sam and Lauren dig into what these opening ads reveal about each campaign’s theory of the race, whether Collins’ long-standing strengths still hold in today’s environment, and how Platner is betting that going on offense early will define her before she can define him.
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