Graham Platner's wife Amy Gertner and parents: What we know about Maine senate candidate's family
Graham Platner is widely expected to win the Maine Democratic Senate primary on June 9, setting up a potential high-stakes race against Republican Senator Susan Collins. As the spotlight grows on the candidate, many are asking about the people closest to him, his wife Amy Gertner and the family he grew up in.
Who is Graham Platner’s wife Amy Gertner?
Platner married Amy Gertner in fall 2023. The couple live in Sullivan in Maine, where they run the Waukeag Neck Oyster Company, which Platner took over in 2019 after his military career, per Newsweek.
Gertner previously worked as an elementary and middle school art teacher. The two met through friends before matching on the dating app Bumble, according to an interview with The New Yorker. Gertner has also been working on her husband’s campaign since it launched in August last year, with Federal Election Commission records showing 16 payroll disbursements totalling $29,042.14, per Newsweek. In an interview with The New York Times in May, Platner said he and his wife together earn around $60,000 a year and get by partly through his veterans’ benefits.
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Who are Graham Platner’s parents?
Platner grew up in Sullivan, Maine, just a short walk from where he lives today. His parents, father Bronson Platner and mother Leslie Harlow are divorced, they separated when he was six years old, per Newsweek.
His father, Bronson Platner, 81, worked as a local attorney specializing in real estate and business transactions. His mother, Leslie Harlow, 72, ran several local businesses and now owns and operates Ironbound restaurant in Hancock. She had also been a delegate at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and a former county party chairwoman and has hosted political fundraisers at her rustic inn and event space, according the New York Times cited by Newsweek.
His grandfather, Warren Platner, was a renowned architect.
Despite Platner’s working-class image on the campaign trail, critics have pointed to his privileged background. His father has donated more than $65,000 since 2011 to federal Democratic candidates, including $3,500 to Senator Ruben Gallego weeks after Gallego endorsed his son, according to New York Times. Bronson Platner also paid for his son and daughter-in-law to travel to Norway for fertility treatments, a source told the Times.
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Platner briefly attended the elite Hotchkiss School in 1999, where annual tuition was around $25,000, fees now start at $68,700. He received financial assistance but was eventually expelled, telling the Times he felt out of place among wealthy students, per Newsweek.
Platner has also pushed back on the narrative. “I’ve never been close to money and power,” he told voters. His mother has also defended him. “We raised our children with strong values and beliefs,” Harlow said in a speech last year. “I know that Graham has always been the kid, the young man and the man who paved his own way,” per Newsweek.