Across the bay from Bar Harbor lies the small town of Sullivan, Maine, population twelve hundred and nineteen. On August 16th, Graham Platner, the bearded, strawberry-blond co-owner of the Waukeag Neck Oyster Company, brought his Carolina Skiff over to the Sullivan Harbor launch. It was three days before a video titled “ Platner for U.S. Senate ” would drop, catapulting this local oyster farmer, harbormaster, and former marine onto the national stage.

The video was produced by Morris Katz, a top political strategist for New York City’s Democratic mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani. “Within a few minutes of talking to him, I was, like, ‘This guy owes it to the country to run for Senate,’ ” Katz recalled, of his first meeting with Platner. The video was meant to present the forty-one-year-

See Full Page