Maine Votes as Graham Platner’s Past Poses New Conundrums

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions. natalie kitroeff From “The New York Times,” I’m Natalie Kitroeff. This is “The Daily.” On Tuesday, Mainers will vote in a primary for a high-stakes Senate seat that Democrats think they can win back from Republicans for the first time in decades. They’re pinning their hopes on progressive Democrat Graham Platner a charismatic oyster farmer and a combat veteran with a populist message. But Platner has faced a string of accusations surrounding his personal behavior, including new reporting in “The Times” that broke last week. Today, my colleagues Lisa Lerer and Katie Glueck explain what this race means for Maine and for the prospects of the Democratic Party. It’s Tuesday, June 9. Hi, Lisa. lisa lerer Hi. natalie kitroeff Hi, Katie. katie glueck Hi. natalie kitroeff So we have you here because you two broke this story late last week. And I think it’s fair to say that it generated a huge reaction. guest I think that’s fair to say. It’s been quite the wild couple of days. I think the story has really divided voters and strategists and the chattering political class, not only in Maine, but just all over the country. natalie kitroeff Just to lay it out, this was a story about the experiences of past girlfriends of Graham Platner, allegations of heavy drinking, physical intimidation. These were not allegations of anything criminal, no allegations of domestic abuse, but some pretty rough stuff. And we’re going to get deeper into that reporting. But before we do that, just explain for me the stakes of what we’re talking about here, the stakes of this race. guest I think that, in part, it reflects just how critical this race is. Maine is all but essential to the Democrats’ path to retaking the Senate. But even before there was any serious talk of who the Democratic nominee could or should be, Maine loomed so large in the minds of Democrats because they thought last time that Susan Collins was on the ballot that she was finally going to lose. Instead, she wins. And so going in to 2026, people were extremely motivated to finally mount a campaign that could actually defeat Senator Collins. And I also think this race, it’s a place where they have really tested this thesis, which many Democrats believe that the party needs new energy, new leadership, more authentic messengers. And they are testing that through this candidate, Graham Platner, who is likely to be their Democratic nominee in this race. natalie kitroeff OK, so a lot riding on this, both in terms of the numbers, as you guys have said, and in terms of these broader ideas of what the Democratic Party’s identity is. Let’s just talk about how we got here. Set up this contest for us. guest So at the very beginning of this contest, there was, really, a widespread expectation that the Democratic nominee would be Janet Mills, who is the 78-year-old two-term governor of Maine. She was the candidate that was the pick of Chuck Schumer, who really is in charge of Democrats’ ambitions for the Senate. She had the political staff. She was just a well-known Democratic leader in this state. And then over last summer, some progressive operatives and activists decided that they were really unhappy with Mills as the pick. And so they went up to Maine and started looking for someone else who could challenge Janet Mills in the Democratic primary. And they found Graham Platner, who at the time was running a small oyster farm in coastal Maine. He had moved back up in 2016 after spending some time in Washington serving in the military. He had never run for any elected office, but they decided that this was the guy who could challenge Janet Mills and should he win the nomination, eventually Susan Collins. natalie kitroeff And why pick him? I get that he reads as homegrown. He’s a little rough around the edges in a kind of everyman way. But what about him specifically felt like the right choice for these progressives? How did they actually land on this guy? guest They had seen a video that he had done as part of an Aquaculture Association, sort of related to the oysters. natalie kitroeff An Aquaculture Association? guest Yes, that’s what the oyster — Maine. Yes, Maine. natalie kitroeff Maine. Got it. guest And he had been involved with some very local political fights over aquaculture in the bay where he has his oyster farm. And they saw that he could speak compellingly. And what he had to say was essentially an economic populist message talking about taking on corruption, taking on billionaires. And that sort of caught their attention. And there was also this idea of — from the progressive Democratic side — of making this a test case for the party establishment. This was a place where they thought that they could send a message about the kind of leaders they thought the party should have. natalie kitroeff OK. So these progressives find Platner. They choose him. They see him as the foil for Janet Mills. And what happens? How does it go? archived recording (guest) In Maine, there is a new Democrat trying to harvest a political career, so to speak. guest He starts taking off. archived recording Let’s talk about Platner, who’s completely unknown and untested. But he has just kind of exploded on the scene. guest He has a lot of natural political talent. archived recording (graham platner) My name is Graham Platner, and I am running for United States Senate. [CHEERING] guest He’s sitting for every interview. speaker My guest today is a veteran oyster farmer and Maine Senate candidate, Graham Platner. Graham, great to see you. graham platner Thank you. speaker Our guest this Sunday is Graham Platner, who’s running for Senate in Maine. Let’s talk to Graham Platner. natalie kitroeff Hours and hours and hours of podcasting, of interviews. archived recording Relatable. Relatable, right. guest He’s doing these town halls. archived recording (graham platner) Until the Democratic Party, at the federal level, is no longer beholden to the same corporate interests that the Republican Party is, we’re going to find ourselves back in this position over and over and over. guest And he begins to sort of build a following. archived recording (graham platner) We are hanging on by a thread. And we either organize and build power and fight, or we lose. And we can’t lose. katie glueck So he also benefits from two major liabilities for Governor Mills. The first is there is a real strain of anti-establishment fervor running through at least some corners of the Democratic base right now. People are upset with Democratic leadership in Washington. And the other thing is her age. Platner is 41. Mills is 78. Coming off of the experience of the 2024 election, a lot of Democrats are demanding a new generation of leadership. And the thing that we would hear from voters over and over is that no matter how much they respected Governor Mills, 78 is too old. natalie kitroeff So he takes off for all the reasons you’re saying, Katie. And then what happens? katie glueck So the flip side of finding new outsider political candidates is sometimes they have not gone through the kind of vetting that veteran establishment politicians have done. And revelations about a trove of comments he made on Reddit — some of them quite inflammatory — come out, revelations that he had a tattoo on his chest that was widely recognized as a Nazi symbol come out. And it sends his campaign into what looks like a freefall. He has staffers leaving the campaign. There’s talk of NDAs being required for the people who stay. And a lot of people assume that these controversies are going to doom them. natalie kitroeff Lisa, can you say more about both of these things, both the tattoo and these Reddit comments? What are we actually talking about here? lisa lerer So the tattoo was a skull and crossbones that Graham Platner had done on his chest back in 2007 when he was in the Marines. And it turned out that this was not just any skull and crossbones, that this was, in fact, a Nazi symbol, a totenkopf. He actually revealed it himself. His campaign had gotten word that the tattoo was going to be put out there by the media. So he went on Pod Save America, a liberal podcast. And basically what he says is, “I got this tattoo when I was in the Marines. I didn’t know what it was until this campaign.” And what he calls DC insiders and opposition researchers, “brought it to my campaign’s attention. And I regret having it.” And he — eventually, he gets it covered up. And the phrase he used is, “I’m not a secret Nazi.” He says he’s lived his life like what he says, a normal person. He’s taken his shirt off at the beach and at the gym, and no one in his life ever told him that he had a Nazi tattoo. natalie kitroeff Got it. And the Reddit posts? lisa lerer So the Reddit posts are a trove of about 2,000 posts — comments, really — that he made on Reddit from about 2009 to 2021 when he says he stopped posting. It’s clear that he deleted some of the posts before he entered the campaign. But as with all things on the internet, deleted things can often come back and be refound, and they’re just a trove of commentary. Some of his comments are quite controversial. He made a few comments about women sort of poo-pooing women who get raped and questioning why they are getting so drunk that they end up raped? He used slurs about gay people, about mentally disabled people. natalie kitroeff And how does Platner explain these messages? katie glueck He has said that many of the most inflammatory comments he wrote at a very dark time in his life. Platner is a combat veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he says that they do not reflect the man he is today and urges Mainers not to judge him for, as he — paraphrasing here — the worst thing he said on the internet on a particularly bad day 14 years ago. lisa lerer Part of his response is to say, look. I served this country. I came out deeply damaged. That’s what you’re seeing in these posts, and I regret them. natalie kitroeff So how did that land? lisa lerer I think Democratic strategists immediately see this as a major liability, not only for his candidacy in the primary, but also in general, given that Republicans have already said they’re going to spend tens of millions of dollars on ads, no matter who is the nominee. So the Mills campaign sees an opportunity in all of this. And they start running ads featuring women — particularly featuring his comments about rape — to try to swing Maine voters towards their side and build her support. But it doesn’t really matter if Democrats in Washington and Mills strategists see this as a liability. What matters, of course, is what Maine voters think. natalie kitroeff Right. lisa lerer So we went up to Maine to hear about that. And there were really a range of reactions. Some people are really worried about his comments about women and the tattoo. And they’re worried that something else could maybe come out about him that could be damaging. I think perhaps one of the most striking moments we observed was a woman who stood up at a town hall and asked, point blank, “What else do voters need to about you?” archived recording I hear your heart saying you’ve changed. You’re a different person now. But they’re going to try to find whatever they can. guest And specifically, is there an account of a woman who’s going to come out and say he mistreated her? archived recording Is there anything from your past that they can dig up on a woman that maybe no didn’t mean no at the time? archived recording (graham platner) No. guest His response was equally striking. archived recording (graham platner) I’ve never had some kind of weird relationships with people. I have a lot of ex-girlfriends. They’re all still my friends. guest He promised the audience that there was nothing else that would come out, but it was also really clear that his message was hitting something really deep that these Democratic primary voters wanted. archived recording Graham Platner has given me hope. He is a good old boy. He is a regular person. He is relatable. I think the authenticity of him, his ability to speak to everyday issues that are facing Mainers. guest There are a lot of people who said that he was speaking for them, for working class voters. archived recording The affordability crisis, he definitely spoke to that. It was something that I personally am struggling with. And — guest There were a lot of people who believed he was a new kind of messenger for a broken political system — archived recording Marginalized communities, working class communities, I mean, we’ve definitely been left out of the conversations of politics for quite some time, right? guest — that he could create a new kind of politics. archived recording For me, a big part of it is the apologeticness, just owning up to things that he’s done. guest There’s another group of people who feel a lot of empathy for his explanation that he made these mistakes at a very dark period of his life. archived recording We’ve all made dumb decisions and done things that we wish we hadn’t done, and trying to move forward from those kinds of things. That’s really relatable for me. natalie kitroeff So I think it becomes clear that this is a movement, and he has built something here in Maine. It sounds like there were some doubts about Platner in the minds of some voters, but ultimately, the enthusiasm for him, the enthusiasm for his politics outweighs those misgivings. guest That’s exactly right. And a really perfect illustration of this is the fact that the day after we talked to all of these voters at a town hall in Maine, same town hall where Platner is facing some of these really pointed questions, Governor Janet Mills ends up dropping out of the race after spending months trailing in the polls, struggling to gain traction, and really, running a very low-key campaign. She says it’s because she runs out of money. And when you run out of money as a candidate, that’s a pretty good sign that you have not effectively connected with the voters. Meantime, Platner is continuing to do well in the polls. He’s continuing to rake in the fundraising. And with Mills’s shock decision to drop out, he effectively immediately becomes the presumptive Democratic nominee. And the general election is off to the races. natalie kitroeff So like happens in any sort of marquee Senate race, along with the frontrunner status comes the scrutiny. lisa lerer And this is when more allegations start to surface. This is when the rumors that were already surrounding him go into hyperdrive. So the first big story that breaks — and it breaks by us in “The New York Times” and also in “The Wall Street Journal,” is that he had been exchanging explicit messages with multiple women as recently as May, 2025. Of course, his campaign launches in August. 2025. And it is his wife who confirms the story to the national media. And the story is basically that within the first two weeks after he announced his campaign, she went to a campaign staffer and flagged these messages as a potential political liability. She says that they are working through it, that they are in marriage counseling. They post a four-minute-long tearful video message from her where she sort of explains the impact this coming out in the public has on their lives. But it also sets off this frenzy around what else there is in terms of Graham Platner’s interactions with women. natalie kitroeff And this brings us, I assume, to last Thursday when your story broke. katie glueck Yes. on Thursday, we published the story that has been months in the making that is rooted in more than two dozen interviews, and it’s really based on allegations from three different women who dated Platner. They describe reckless and unsettling behavior. They describe heavy drinking, infidelity, and in at least one case, there is the description of physical intimidation. natalie kitroeff When you say physical intimidation, what do you actually mean by that? lisa lerer Well, a woman who now lives in Virginia — Lyndsey Fifield — dated Platner from about 2013 to 2015. And she describes several instances of what she said was physical intimidation. There was one where she said Graham Platner yanked her out of a taxi by her wrist. She said that he would grab her by the shoulders hard enough to leave marks and move her around from place to place. And she said once when they had both been drinking and were having a fight over infidelity, he pinned her arm behind her back and pushed her into a room and held the door closed. And she says it hurt, but it didn’t break her arm. But it hurt. But it is important to note that Lyndsey Fifield said that Platner never hit her. He never punched her, that this was physical, but it didn’t cross that line. katie glueck But beyond the issues of physical intimidation that Lyndsey Fifield was alleging, there were other concerns that she raised. She said that the way that Platner could talk about violence would leave her uneasy at times. She says he left an AR-15 lying around his apartment on Capitol Hill. But she also recalled that he would say pretty disturbing things. For example, she told us that he would say the following, quote, “If anybody ever broke in here, I would rape them.” She said that he added that it would not be, quote, in a sexual way, not in a gay way, but that he would, quote, “rape them to show them that I’m dominant,” she said. lisa lerer And she also added that he knew the tattoo was a Nazi symbol. And he would joke about it being a Nazi symbol and called it affectionately, “mein totenkopf.” natalie kitroeff lisa lerer Exactly. And what Lyndsey says is not only did he know, but he and other members of his unit in the Marines selected the tattoo because they were, as she says, quote, “like a death unit. They were killers.” And they saw a parallel between what they were doing and the Nazi SS unit. natalie kitroeff And how did you evaluate these claims? I mean, she’s telling you these really explosive things. How do you corroborate them? katie glueck So we looked at texts over the years between Ms. Fifield and Mr. Platner. We looked at G Chat conversations, at Facebook messages between Lyndsey and a number of her friends both during and after the relationship. We saw some of her diary entries after the relationship had ended. And we talked to two of her friends who told us that, indeed, the pair had had an emotionally volatile relationship. At the same time — and we’re clear about this in the story — those friends could not offer corroboration from the time regarding the physical altercations, the most controversial comments that Lyndsey described, and she told us that she didn’t expect them to be able to offer that real-time corroboration from that time because she said she didn’t tell anyone at the time, saying that she was embarrassed. But, to be clear, we spoke with three women who dated Platner on and off over a period of years as recently as 2021. They said spending time with him could be exhilarating, but they also recounted patterns of heavy drinking, of womanizing. One of the women, for instance, told us about an incident in 2021 in which Platner was very drunk. She told him not to come over. He did anyway, and she describes his behavior that night as reckless and unsettling, and says she goes on to cut off contact with him. lisa lerer So the other element that we had to contend with in this story is that Lyndsey Fifield is a conservative, and she is someone who has a long history of working in Republican politics. She worked for the Heritage Foundation, which is, of course, a conservative think tank. She worked for Independent Women, which is a conservative women’s organization. And she worked briefly on Nikki Haley’s primary campaign. These were not things that she hid from us. She was very open about her political views and her political background, and said that they had no influence on the allegations that she was making against Platner. But as part of our corroboration process, and certainly on behalf of “Times” readers, we had to look into those claims and really investigate whether she did have any ties to the Collins campaign. And in the end, we could not find any evidence that she did. And since the story ran, Susan Collins herself came out and said she had never met Lyndsey Fifield or even heard her name. natalie kitroeff But, of course, just because she doesn’t have a connection to Susan Collins’s campaign doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have an agenda, right? How did you think about that? guest Well, I think that was an important question in the reporting. And so we dealt with it in a number of ways. We asked her directly about it, and she said very clearly that she would have brought the allegations even against a Republican. And the other thing we did is we felt it was really, really important to be transparent with “Times” readers about what we knew and what we did not about her political background. natalie kitroeff And how did the Platner campaign react when you brought them this reporting before you published, when you’re letting them this is what our reporting has revealed? lisa lerer So we went to the campaign with the allegations and ran them through the story a number of times. And they chose to respond in a few different ways. First, they chose to specifically deny two things. One, that Graham Platner knew what his tattoo symbolized and knew that it was a Nazi symbol at any point in time, but specifically when he got it — second being any allegation of any kind of physical intimidation. And beyond those two specific denials, they offer two blanket statements. One was from Graham Platner himself where he talked about being a less-than-perfect boyfriend and said he took responsibility for that behavior, but anything beyond that was categorically false. They also offered a second statement that came from the campaign where they really attempted to undercut Lyndsey Fifield’s allegations by pointing out her conservative background and really painting her as a Republican political operative. And they also connected us to five people, including three former girlfriends who could testify to Platner’s character. And so we called all those people, and they described a far more positive interaction with him and far more positive characterization of his sort of intimate relationships. And then we felt, after pretty intensive editing and standards process here at “The Times” we were ready to publish after all those months of reporting. And so we published, and then all hell broke loose. [THEME MUSIC] natalie kitroeff We’ll be right back. OK, Lisa, talk us through the hell breaking loose. lisa lerer So almost immediately, it was absolute mayhem on all the places that political gadflies, commentators, strategists, gather online. natalie kitroeff So X? lisa lerer X, social media, Facebook, all those kinds of places. And you have to remember, everyone across the country is invested in this race because both sides want to win control of the Senate. But they also see — at least among Democrats — as this really big struggle over what the path forward is for this party that is so deeply in the wilderness right now. So people really went crazy across the political spectrum. And on the right and on the left, they had a lot of views about this story. People on the right said the story downplayed real allegations, that we had intentionally chosen not to report things that we had that were more serious than the various allegations included in our story. And what was particularly interesting about that was the people making those claims included Lyndsey Fifield herself, who said there were much more serious things out there than we had reported. natalie kitroeff So the critics on the right and this source — Lyndsey Fifield — are saying you didn’t go far enough? You intentionally protected Platner? lisa lerer Yes. They’re saying that this story — which revealed really serious allegations about Graham Platner’s conduct in the past — was actually a gift to his campaign because it functioned to bury more serious allegations that they believe are out there. And look, that’s just categorically false. “The Times” is not in the business of holding back for any candidate or agenda. We published everything credible that we had. natalie kitroeff And what about Democrats? Like, what was the tenor of their response? katie glueck For more moderate Democratic officials, this is exactly what they have been worrying about. archived recording (elissa slotkin) I look forward to the day where I am not answering — every single week — a question about bad behavior by another dude. I just — katie glueck You saw Senator Elissa Slotkin from Michigan expressing exasperation about being asked about yet another Platner controversy. archived recording (john fetterman) Being a dirt bag is not authentic. Being a dirt bag is being a dirt bag. katie glueck You saw Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania go much further in condemning this. And more broadly, there’s this fear that what should be an eminently winnable seat this year in a year that is looking to be quite challenging for Republicans is, in fact, going to end up backfiring for the Democrats. lisa lerer And on the progressive left, there was a very different reaction. They rallied behind Graham Platner. archived recording (bernie sanders) So I think when you look at politics in general, there are no saints in the United States Senate. People can argue about this aspect of Graham or another, but to my mind right now, we need allies in the United States Senate who have the guts to take on the big money. lisa lerer Senator Bernie Sanders restated his support for Platner and said he was still standing by him. archived recording (bernie sanders) I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that Graham Platner is the next senator from the state of Maine. [APPLAUSE] lisa lerer A number of progressives, strategists and professionals, activists online, really attempted to downplay the allegations. And Platner himself kind of takes the same tact in an interview with Chris Hayes on MS NOW where he denies the allegations and really pushes this idea that Lyndsey Fifield is a right wing operative, and those kinds of claims about her political background being the driver of her desire to make these allegations are really echoed across the whole ecosystem of the progressive left. natalie kitroeff Got it. So some worry — it sounds like — from moderate Democratic officials who see this as a flashing red warning sign and progressives, on the other hand, saying, this doesn’t matter. This is not going to be a problem — in a way, more of the same. Talk about voters and how they reacted to this. lisa lerer Well, our colleague, “Daily” producer Caitlin O’Keefe, spent the weekend calling Maine voters and asked them what they were making of all this. caitlin o'keefe Do you who you’re going to vote for on Tuesday, primary day? speaker Absolutely supporting Graham Platner. I’m going to vote for Graham Platner. I just can’t bring myself to support Platner. natalie kitroeff So there’s a couple of different groups of people. lisa lerer At the end of the day, you kind of just have to figure out if you believe in someone’s character or not. And I haven’t believed in anyone’s character other than Graham Platner for a very long time. Some of them are just all in on Graham Platner. speaker I am not marrying the man. I am not dating the man. I am not expecting him to be flawless. lisa lerer They think he’s flawed, but who isn’t flawed? speaker I don’t see any evidence that supports the fact that he’s an abusive person or did anything ridiculously out of line. lisa lerer And some of those people also question whether to believe Lyndsey Fifield because of her conservative background. speaker Since the primary accuser has worked for the Heritage Foundation, [SPITS]: I mean, seriously. lisa lerer On the other hand, there’s a set of people who are really against Graham Platner. speaker I don’t think he has the demeanor that we need in a US Senator. I think he’s a clown. lisa lerer They were wary of him before, and this has just confirmed their concerns. speaker Just because that woman happens to work for the Republicans, the one who is the chief accuser, doesn’t mean she’s not telling the truth. He clearly dated her. And I thought we were supposed to listen to women. lisa lerer And they’re saying, aren’t we supposed to believe women? speaker If we as progressive women are saying believe women except for the ones that we’re on the opposite political spectrum of, that is wrong and gross. lisa lerer And some of these people were lifelong Democrats — are lifelong Democrats — and now they’re really thinking about whether to support Collins in the general election. speaker I never thought that I would be fact-checking Susan Collins’s record to see if there’s anything redeemable in it. And here I am being like, oh, how bad is she? Like, it just makes me gross even thinking about potentially. I’m not a fan of Susan Collins by any stretch, but I know that she won’t embarrass the state, and I’m really afraid that he will. lisa lerer And lastly, there’s just a group of people who don’t what to do. They’re really torn. speaker I want to vote for someone who I can fully stand behind. And in an ideal world, that would be the candidate that we have. But if it’s not Platner, then who is it? natalie kitroeff Just pitching forward to that general election scenario, it does seem entirely possible that despite all of these accusations, Platner could still win, right? It seems clear, obviously, that this drip, drip, drip of revelations has had an impact on his campaign. But we don’t know if this is actually disqualifying in the eyes of voters yet. lisa lerer No. And we’re a long way to go from the general election. I know for people who have been following this race closely, it feels like we’ve been in it for a long time. But there are still many months to go before a general election. And this is, of course, a year that by all indications — and granted, it’s still fairly early — is likely to favor Democrats. So it’s definitely possible Graham Platner is the next Senator from Maine. natalie kitroeff OK. Just talk about what lessons Democrats would take from either outcome, from voters in a general election rejecting Platner in part because of his flawed past, or of him winning. Does this race seem like a referendum on whether this kind of political scandal matters to Democratic voters in an era when Republicans seem to have abandoned morality tests for some of their most high profile candidates? katie glueck I might look at it slightly differently. The 2028 presidential election will start the moment the midterm elections are over. And people are already using this race and other key races around the country to advance their theories of what it’s going to take to win in ‘28. And I think no matter what happens, the result in Maine is going to fuel arguments about who the next presidential candidate should be. So if Platner wins, you are going to see a lot of the more progressive Democrats who have rallied to him — who have embraced his candidacy — say this is the path forward. We need more candidates who are speaking out boldly on Medicare for All, on confronting the oligarchy, on taking a much harder line toward Israel, for example, and arguing that finding candidates maybe from outside the traditional system, that that’s the way to connect with disaffected voters — in particular working class voters. If he loses, the recriminations are going to be extraordinary. More moderate Democrats will say, this is exactly why you don’t nominate someone who, in their view, is too far left, someone who has far too much personal baggage. We need to go with someone who has been far more vetted and experienced. So no matter the outcome, this race and its outcome is going to be a microcosm of the Democratic fights to come over the real future of the party, which I think will not be decided until ‘28. natalie kitroeff You’re saying Democrats may very well take the result in Maine as a verdict, not just on Platner, but on what they should do in 2028 in the National election? katie glueck Right. natalie kitroeff Basically, what you’re saying is that this Platner-Collins race and what Democrats ultimately draw from it, it’s reflective of something that we as a country have been grappling with, this rethinking of what we want from our political leaders. President Trump represented this huge shift for the Republican Party, someone who’s an outsider who’d never been elected to anything who can easily connect with regular people because he reflects raw anger that voters have. And now the Democrats are grappling with something very similar. It’s a different flavor of that, but that is, at its core, the dilemma. What do we actually need our politicians, our leaders, our representatives to be for us? lisa lerer I think that’s right. I think the country is going through a period of rethinking what kind of experience they want their political leaders to have, and also what kind of things that were traditionally seen as political baggage they’re willing to accept. And we’re at a moment where the country and voters on both sides are reevaluating how they view both experience and baggage. natalie kitroeff And I think this main race is testing in a really big, really high-profile way, how much Democratic primary voters are willing to prioritize someone that they feel authentically represents them over things they may not like about the person, or even questions of their personal character. Well, Lisa, Katie, thank you both so much. lisa lerer Thank you. katie glueck Thanks for having us. [THEME MUSIC] natalie kitroeff We’ll be right back. Here’s what else you need to know today. A US Army Apache helicopter gunship went down near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, and the two crew members were safely rescued, according to two people briefed on the incident. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the Apache was shot down by Iranian fire, experienced mechanical failure, or ran into some other problem. The incident came after days of ups and downs in the fighting in the Middle East, as Israel and Iran exchanged military strikes before stepping back. The Trump administration had not disclosed news of the downed helicopter by the time “The New York Times” reached out to the White House for comment on Monday night. Today’s episode was produced by Caitlin O’Keefe, Nina Feldman, Asthaa Chaturvedi and Chris Benderev with help from Alex Young. It was edited by MJ Davis, Lin, and Paige Cowett and contains music by Dan Powell and Marion Lozano. Our theme music is by Wonderly. This episode was engineered by Chris Wood. That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Natalie Kitroeff. See you tomorrow.