Platner is up to something different [than Mills]. He isn’t running a campaign so much as seeking to build a mass movement against the status quo. He’s not trying to woo the working class to the Democratic Party; he’s trying to mobilize the working class to take over the Democratic Party and use it to fundamentally change the relationship between government and citizens. To him, Trump is a symptom of a larger rot, a fundamentally broken system, and the old rules of American politics are already beside the point. The Democratic establishment is “still existing in this world where they think that if you know the rules the best, you’re going to win,” he told me. “When the other side is just beating you over the head with the rule book, it doesn’t matter.”

In keeping with these themes, he’s running a far grander campaign than Mills in terms of ambition and drive. (It does help that he isn’t limited by the need to simultaneously govern.) He seems to be everywhere, all the time, both on TV, thanks to his nearly three-to-one fundraising edge, and in person. His call for building working-class power aligns not only with his working-man presentation but also with his workman-like approach to campaigning: He has held more than 50 town halls—so well attended that people are often turned away—and shows up in every corner of the state. Unlike Mills, he’s not trying to convince voters that he will stand up to Trump; he’s trying to start a movement to build a world without the despair and resentment that he believes allows Trump’s brand of politics to flourish.

[…]

When it was his turn to speak, Platner talked, as he often does, about power. He discussed how New Dealers once wielded power on behalf of working people and how, starting in the 1970s, corporate interests began taking that power back, pouring money into politics to influence policy, which produced more money to pour into politics. It has all led to this moment, he explained, when a supposedly democratic country starts a war in Iran that is overwhelmingly unpopular with its citizens but is good for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Saudi government, and Raytheon executives. “Every time a Tomahawk missile hits a kid’s school, somebody makes a profit,” he said.

On a recent Zoom call that Mills held with Democratic voters from Hancock County, where Platner grew up and lives, many participants seemed outraged not by Platner’s transgressions but rather by Mills’s attempt to draw attention to them. “I think your ads are divisive and odious, and you are doing Susan Collins’s work for her,” former Democratic state representative J. Mark Worth told Mills.

Mills seemed surprised by the pushback. “I think the voters of Maine have a right to know,” she said. But after a decade of watching Trump’s conduct, some Democratic voters don’t seem to be in the mood to judge Platner’s past. “I constantly have to tell myself that just because something used to be true doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true going forward,” University of Maine political science professor Mark Brewer told me. “I think Platner is a good example, especially within the Democratic Party.”

The Democratic establishment is “still existing in this world where they think that if you know the rules the best, you’re going to win,” he told me. “When the other side is just beating you over the head with the rule book, it doesn’t matter.”

In the more than three years since he became the top House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries has sometimes struggled to escape the shadow of his esteemed predecessor.

He stood alone in the limelight Wednesday, however, after engineering a feat of political hardball — a statewide vote paving the way for new Virginia congressional maps that could wipe out four GOP-held seats — that earned praise from Nancy Pelosi herself.

“I’m very proud,” the former speaker said in an interview, adding Jeffries has handled redistricting “fabulously.”

Tuesday’s vote was the culmination of months of lobbying from Jeffries to counter the mid-decade redistricting push launched by Trump and his allies in Texas. He barnstormed the country, pressing Democratic state legislators to match the GOP blow-for-blow.

Not all of his entreaties were successful, [actually only one was, but don’t let facts get in the way] but he found partners in the Virginia state house who were willing to tee up a plan that would turn the Commonwealth’s 6-5 Democratic map into a 10-1 advantage. Jeffries backed the effort with $38 million in funding from a leadership-aligned group, House Majority Forward — the biggest single expenditure in the fight.