Amna Nawaz
@PBSNewsHour·5.3M subscribers·62.2K videos
How Platner rose to Democratic ‘standard-bearer’
Posted
July 13, 2026
Views
6,625
Likes
269
Engagement
4.06%
July 13, 2026
6,625
269
4.06%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
See what was published immediately before and after this episode.
1:30Now PlayingGraham Platner’s exit from the Maine Senate race raises questions about Democrats’ prospects in the November midterms. But who is Platner, and why did Democrats choose him?
"Graham Platner was found by these political operatives, young political operatives, who did very little vetting, and he was connected with an agency that focuses on these progressive candidates," Puck’s Leigh Ann Caldwell told Washington Week moderator Jeffrey Goldberg.
"But how he gained so much support is he is charismatic, he was a good messenger and he had the message that the progressive left, the Bernie Sanders wing of the party, is really looking for," Caldwell added.
Washington Week with The Atlantic is a partnership between @PBSNewsHour, @WETAPBS and @TheAtlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Tap the link in Washington Week's bio to watch this week’s episode.
Sign up for Here's The Deal with Lisa Desjardins
Subscribe for exclusive content in our newsletters
PBS News podcasts
Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app
Find more from PBS News at
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
