Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, the self-described “working class Mainer,” attended an elite boarding school in Connecticut that costs upwards of $75,000 a year. Its alumni include Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart, former CIA director Porter Goss, Clinton family crony Strobe Talbott, MacKenzie Scott Bezos, and the veteran news anchor Chris Wallace.
“Graham Platner is enrolled as a first-year student at the Hotchkiss School, located in Lakeville, Conn.,” a Maine newspaper, the Ellsworth American, reported in November 1999. “Platner is familiar to many through his role as the Artful Dodger in ‘Oliver’ and as a 20th Maine Civil War Re-Enactor.” The Hotchkiss School is located roughly 60 miles from Yale University in northwestern Connecticut.
Platner has discussed his days as a Civil War reenactor: The New Yorker reported his mother “hired a local seamstress to sew a Union uniform for him to wear to Civil War reenactments.”
The revelation undercuts the working-class image Platner has attempted to present on the campaign trail. The left-wing candidate, who once described himself as a communist, described himself in his campaign launch video as a “working class Mainer who’s seen this state become unlivable for working people.”
Platner does not appear to have lasted long at the Hotchkiss School. A subsequent Ellsworth American piece published in 2002 lists Platner as one of four students in Sullivan, Maine, who made the hour-long commute to John Baptist Memorial High School in Bangor, a more cost-friendly private school. Platner is identified as a junior who is accustomed to the commute “after three years.”
“What I like best is just the education,” Platner told the paper. “Being a private school, you get much more attention.”
John Baptist, the Ellsworth American wrote at the time, cost nothing for students who lived in towns without high schools and $6,500 a year—roughly $12,000 in today’s dollars—for those who lived in towns with high schools but chose to attend the private school. Sullivan, where Platner lived with his mother, has a public high school, so Platner likely would have paid tuition.
It’s unclear what prompted Platner’s seemingly sudden departure from Hotchkiss to John Baptist. Neither the schools nor the Platner campaign responded to requests for comment.
Platner made a mark at John Baptist, winning an award for “Most Likely to Start a Revolution.” A yearbook photo of the award shows a young Platner holding a piece of paper calling to “Free” Chechnya, Kosovo, and “Palestine.” Platner also penned an op-ed for the Bangor Daily News that equated post-9/11 terrorist groups with “freedom fighters” and lamented that “every terrorist is portrayed as evil” in the media.
Hotchkiss, meanwhile, offers the kinds of world-class amenities expected of a school that earlier this month won the distinction of America’s number one boarding school.
It operates a 287-acre farm a mile from campus and a 220,000 square foot “state-of-the-art” athletic facility featuring indoor batting cages, elevated indoor running tracks, squash courts, tennis courts, and two ice skating rinks—one Olympic-sized, while the other fits the dimensions of a National Hockey League rink.
The “Hotchkiss in the World” program provides study abroad opportunities in France, Italy, Spain, and the Bahamas. Hotchkiss hosts renowned international musicians, such as Siqing Lu, a celebrated Chinese violinist who performed at Hotchkiss earlier this month.
Platner’s enrollment there stands in stark contrast to the mainstream media’s “working class” portrayal of Platner, who before becoming an oyster farmer worked as a State Department contractor in Afghanistan for Constellis, formerly known as Blackwater.
The New Yorker, for example, asked whether “a Maine oyster farmer” can defeat incumbent Republican senator Susan Collins. The Washington Post labeled Platner one of its “rugged guys of the 2026 midterms” alongside two other bearded, tattooed Democratic candidates. Bon Appétit, the foodie magazine, hailed Platner as a “working-class oysterman” poised to become Maine’s version of Zohran Mamdani, the socialist candidate for New York City mayor.
There are other markers of a privileged upbringing. Platner’s father, Bronson Platner, is a prominent Maine attorney, and his grandfather, Warren Platner, was the architect who built the headquarters for the Ford Foundation. A New York Times obituary described his works as “enduring icon[s] of 1960s Modernism.” His archives are stored at Yale University.
Platner has faced criticism for a series of inflammatory Reddit posts and, more recently, for a Nazi symbol tattooed to his chest. In the Reddit posts, Platner described himself as a “communist” and an “antifa supersoldier.” He promoted violent political action, stating in 2018 that “an armed working class is a requirement for economic justice.” Platner also claimed an affiliation with the Maine chapter of the Socialist Rifle Association and said he provided firearm instruction to the group, which has referred to police officers as “fascist pigs.”
Platner has said he is embarrassed by the posts, which he wrote when he was in his 30s. He referred to them as the musings of a Reddit “shit poster” fueled by anger and alcohol. “I also used to like to get drunk and post on Reddit, because that was fun when I was angry and alone,” Platner told Pod Save America.
Inebriation is also Platner’s explanation for the Nazi tattoo he got in Croatia while serving in the Marines in 2007. The tattoo is a Totenkopf, a skull and crossbones tattoo affiliated with Nazi Germany and white supremacist groups. “We got very inebriated, and we did what Marines on liberty do, and we decided to go get a tattoo,” Platner said.
He told Pod Save America‘s Tommy Vietor, a former van driver for the 2008 Obama presidential campaign, that he was unaware of the tattoo’s symbolism.
Two Platner associates have contradicted his claim of ignorance. Genevieve McDonald, who resigned as Platner’s political director over the Reddit posts, said Platner is a “history buff” who likely knew the meaning behind the tattoo. And a person who knew Platner when he lived in Washington, D.C., told Jewish Insider that Platner fondly referred to the tattoo as “my Totenkopf.”
Platner has now covered up the tattoo, revealing the new design—a wolf with Celtic imagery—during a television interview in Maine.
Original News Source – Washington Free Beacon
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