Earlier this month, U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner traveled to a small Downeast town for his campaign’s first formal policy rollout.

The 41-year-old combat veteran unveiled his “Defending Democracy Agenda” in Machias. He chose the location because the ocean beyond its coastline was the theater for the first major naval victory of the American revolution — a fitting backdrop for his calls to return power back to the people.

“Two hundred and fifty years ago we had to fight for American democracy,” Platner said. “Today we must fight again — this time, against the corruption and corporate power that threatens our entire system of government.”

Platner’s call to action comes as the Democratic party is in the middle of a revolution of its own — one epitomized by the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Maine.

The race between Platner, 41, and two-term incumbent Gov. Janet Mills, 78, is essentially a national proxy battle between an ascendant wing of progressives and the more centrist Democratic party leaders.

Platner is backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, while Mills was recruited and supported by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and several other Democratic senators and governors.

To some observers, the political moment is strikingly similar to a decade and a half ago, when Republicans went through their own revolution. Like the Republican Tea Party wave in 2010, Platner’s populist rhetoric is at times fueled by references to America’s founding. And just as the Tea Party produced an unprecedented political figure in Gov. Paul LePage, this progressive moment might produce a singular leader in Platner.

A similar dynamic is playing out in other races across the country. In New York City, Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist assemblyman, became mayor by upsetting the political order and defeating former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo in both the primary and the general election, in which Cuomo ran as an independent.

And members of Mamdani’s campaign have been instrumental in Platner’s rise here in Maine.

Mark Brewer, chair of political science at the University of Maine in Orono, said the current identity crisis among Democrats shares elements of populist, anti-establishment anger with the Tea Party movement — though their policy aims are vastly different.

“I think there’s a lot of parallels there,” Brewer said. “(Democrats) are definitely unhappy with their own party’s establishment.”

The stakes of this round of soul-searching are high. Democrats see Platner’s race as their best pickup opportunity in the midterms. Without Maine, they likely won’t be able to take control of the Senate back from Republicans. They believe they have five-term incumbent Susan Collins, who is the only Republican running in a state won by Democrats in 2024, on the ropes.

Platner’s campaign declined to comment or make the candidate available for an interview Friday.

The Tea Party movement of 2009-10 organized frustrated members of the Republican party and empowered candidates ready to buck the system. Many were disillusioned with the pro-war policies of Republican President George W. Bush and the circumstances around the Great Recession. There was also an element of cultural backlash to Barack Obama becoming the first Black president in history.

The revolution spread to Maine. Despite having a history of electing moderate, pragmatic candidates, Paul LePage, a brash, tough-talking mayor of Waterville, emerged from a crowded Republican primary and was elected to two terms as governor. (While the Tea Party buoyed LePage in the 2010 election, it was not solely responsible for his rise. He emerged from a crowded primary and won a general election against two other strong candidates without capturing a majority.)

That restless energy is now percolating among Democrats.

Nicholas Jacobs, a political science professor at Colby College, said that in many ways the Tea Party movement gave rise to Trump, who plays exclusively to his base. Democrats, many of whom feel betrayed by former President Joe Biden, who ran for reelection despite promising to be a transitional president, want someone who speaks more to their concerns.

“I think this is all now crystallizing in this debate over generational change within the party,” Jacobs said. “There’s complete loss of faith in the old guard, which is now officially old by anyone’s standard.”

Platner, meanwhile, has spoken directly to Trump’s appeal to working class voters at his town hall events.

In Windham last November, Platner said Trump and Republicans have excelled at speaking to the frustrations of blue collar voters. But he said those voters often direct that anger at the wrong people, primarily marginalized communities.

The Democratic base is responding to Platner, a gravel-voiced political newcomer. His diehard supporters brush off his lack of experience and polish. And they dismiss controversies over his past internet comments and over a tattoo resembling a Nazi image he got while serving as a machine gunner in the U.S. Marines. (Platner says he didn’t realize his tattoo resembled a Nazi Totenkopf and removed it as soon as he found out. But his campaign manager, who resigned in protest, said the candidate is a history buff and knew of the association long before it became public.)

Recent polls show Platner, who has never held political office, leading Mills, who has spent her career as a public servant, having won two statewide elections.

That lead among Democratic primary voters has ranged from 38 percentage points in a University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll in February to 7 points in survey by Pan Atlantic Research. But even the latter showed a 17-point swing to Platner since last fall, when the same firm had Mills up 10 points.

Democrats interviewed at Platner’s town hall events often voice respect for Mills’ service to the state, but say they want a new generation of leadership.

One Platner’s first ads featured middle-aged women expressing fatigue with Mills and support for the oyster farmer.

“Maybe he can shuck up the system,” one of them jokes.