After repeatedly slamming the ultra-wealthy, campaign finance data reveals that the candidate has received donations from billionaires.
By World Israel News Staff
Embattled Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner said at a campaign rally Sunday that he would like to see billionaires imprisoned for “looking at a TV ad the wrong way.”
Platner, a far-left progressive, was speaking to supporters in Portland, Maine, and focused heavily on his desire to remove big money from U.S. elections.
“We need to get money out of politics….if I had my way, elections would last two months, they will be publicly funded and if a billionaire looked at a TV ad the wrong way, we’d put ’em in jail,” Platner said, drawing loud applause from the crowd.
It is not the first time Platner has used his platform to criticize billionaires.
In a May post on X, Platner suggested that the ultra-wealthy influenced the 2024 presidential election, which saw Donald Trump return to the White House.
“Ban billionaires buying elections,” he wrote.
On his campaign website, Platner argues that billionaires wield outsized influence over government policy and are driving economic hardship for ordinary Americans.
“Maine is becoming unaffordable for thousands and thousands of us. Why? Because we have a government by, of, and for billionaires, who are building a ‘billionaire economy’ that none of us can afford,” the site states.
Notably, however, Platner’s campaign has also benefited from support linked to billionaire donors.
Billionaire philanthropists George Soros, Pat Stryker, Jon Stryker and Jennifer Pritzker, all known for backing progressive causes, have contributed to Platner’s campaign.
“The reality is, that’s kind of standard procedure in contemporary American elections – that each side has their billionaires,” Mark Brewer, chair of the University of Maine’s political science department, told OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks money in politics.
“It’s not like the billionaire class is just one side of the other. Although candidates would often like to have you believe that, that’s just simply not true. … You can definitely sustain the campaign on small donations from less affluent donors and voters, but donors of deep pockets help too, and each side has their deep pockets.”
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