00:00Oh boy, oh well, thank you Meng, thank you all very much. I want to thank my mom and my
00:21dad,
00:24who have loved me unconditionally for 41 years, even when it wasn't easy.
00:32If you believe, as I do, that we can change our politics and change our country,
00:39then you must also believe that people can change.
00:48And the reason I believe that is because I have lived it.
00:53And the reason that I have lived it is because of my wife.
01:09Amy, Amy, Amy, Amy, Amy, Amy, Amy, Amy, Amy, Amy.
01:18Amy Jane, you are my best friend and the love of my life, and thank you.
01:29Over the last nine months, I have seen Mainers come together,
01:34behind a vision to take back our power from corporations and billionaires.
01:43I love every single one of you, everyone who has shown up at a town hall,
01:50who has knocked on a door, who cast their vote, not for me, but for a vision of a life
01:57in Maine that you can afford.
02:03A life of dignity and a government that actually serves its people.
02:13I want to thank our incredible campaign team and all 15,000 volunteers.
02:30You have built the most powerful grassroots movement in the history of this state.
02:40This is because of you.
02:44And when we finally defeat Susan Collins,
02:59that will be because of you, too.
03:02You don't just believe in a different kind of politics.
03:07You have dedicated your time and your talents to it.
03:12It is a service to our state and to our nation.
03:18And thank you.
03:25I also want to thank Governor Janet Mills for a lifetime of service to a state that we both love.
03:33We are eternally grateful.
03:43And to any of those who feel let down or disappointed or disillusioned,
03:48it is my job to earn your trust, faith, and support.
03:54And I will spend every day of this campaign, and if I have the privilege,
03:58every day in the United States Senate doing exactly that.
04:10It is deeply humbling to stand here as your Democratic nominee.
04:23It is an honor, and I will not let you down.
04:33Until recently, I thought that Harbor Master would be the height of my political career.
04:38It now appears that things have changed.
04:42But it's funny, this morning was a normal one.
04:45I woke up in my home just a few doors down from the house I grew up in.
04:50Amy and I shared a pot of coffee.
04:52We walked our dogs on the same road that I've spent most of my life on.
04:56We spent the afternoon knocking on doors and getting ready for this evening.
05:00And then we drove down here to Blue Hill, where I was born.
05:08Born in a maternity ward that has since closed.
05:15I am a son of rural Maine.
05:18I was a kid who picked blueberries under the July sun, and then one day, I was a kid who
05:24signed up and left to fight for his country.
05:26And when I returned, I carried with me the weight of forever wars and the struggle and the alienation that
05:34came with it.
05:35But I am also a lucky one who found his way back, who found a living on the sea and
05:44a home and a community that offered love and redemption.
05:51Redemption is not just some simple or easy destination.
05:54It's a journey.
05:56I've made mistakes in my life, mistakes that I regret, that I live with, and that I continue to learn
06:02from.
06:03And I'm still far from perfect.
06:06But every day, I wake up and I try to be a little bit better and a little bit kinder
06:12than I was the day before.
06:14And if you give me the chance, I will be a senator for the people who cannot afford to buy
06:20a senator.
06:33I will stand up for you and against billionaires and greedy corporations.
06:43I will serve you, the people of Maine, not some lobbyist or party boss.
06:49I will be the champion for your dreams as if it were my own, no matter the challenge or the
06:57expense.
06:58I will fight for you.
07:05I have been willing to die for my country.
07:08There is nothing that I will not do for the state of Maine.
07:24You have lifted me up.
07:25You have had my back.
07:29This is the state that raised me, and this is the state that saved me.
07:36Now, I am not a deeply religious man, and yet I cannot help but think tonight about a hymn.
07:44I once was lost, but now I'm found.
07:50Found because of the grace of the people of Maine.
07:55Grace comes when a tree falls and your neighbor brings over a chainsaw.
08:01Grace comes when your truck gives out late at night and someone you've never met stops to help you.
08:07Grace comes when you need it most and expect it least, when your parents need a hand
08:12and an old friend doesn't hesitate to go shovel the driveway.
08:16Or when a teacher, as underpaid as they are, stays late after school, gives up their own precious free time
08:25to help a kid who has fallen behind.
08:33Grace, grace is not inevitable, but here in Maine, sometimes it feels like it is.
08:40And that is something I will never take for granted.
08:44It is a mighty gift, and one that I am committed to extending outwards.
08:53Maine, I love you.
08:56I love this state.
09:09Now, the National Pundits, the political establishment, they keep looking for that one story, that one headline, that one moment
09:19in my life that they can define the campaign by.
09:23But in trying so hard to understand me, they failed to understand that this is not about me at all.
09:37This is a movement about us.
09:44About the far too many working far too hard and struggling far too much at the hands of the ruling
09:52class.
09:53It is not a story of my hardship, it's of our hardship.
10:01A story of the hardship of every working Mainer.
10:05People that used to be able to stern in the summertime, plow in the winter, dig clams, and be able
10:11to send your kid off to college, but you can't anymore.
10:13Because that hard work, it isn't enough now.
10:19This story, the story of this campaign, it's not about how the political establishment counted me out.
10:26It's about how far too long the political establishment has counted out the voices of every single person without the
10:37money to buy influence.
10:43But they don't know Maine.
11:11Those who think we can be fooled by a handful of billionaires, who think they can just
11:16buy elections like they buy yachts or other houses.
11:20But they don't know Maine.
11:25We will continue to show up for one another.
11:29We will be the people that fight for each other in the places that we love.
11:34We are ready for change.
11:45And they will try to make this race about everything other than what it absolutely is.
11:52A simple choice for who will represent us in the United States Senate.
12:03Susan Collins may have started her career decades ago in Washington with good intentions.
12:12But she has become just as spineless and corrupt as the establishment she now serves.
12:21She got elected promising to protect Roe versus Wade, only to turn around and put on a justice, put a
12:30justice to Supreme Court who overturned it.
12:32She lied to us.
12:37Susan Collins has used her privilege and power to funnel $60 million in federal contracts, $60 million of our tax
12:47dollars to her lobbyist husband.
12:53If that's not corruption, I don't know what is.
12:58Susan Collins has gotten 21 times wealthier just in the last 15 years.
13:07Has anybody else gotten 21 times wealthier since Susan Collins was elected to office?
13:13Does Maine have 21 times the schools and hospitals?
13:19No.
13:20We have less.
13:23Susan Collins is getting rich while we're getting screwed.
13:28The last time she ran for office, she received more money from private equity than any other member of Congress.
13:38Including some of the same private equity companies that shuttered the mills here in Maine.
13:44And ever since then, she has stood by and done nothing while they have bought up nursing homes, local businesses,
13:52the last of the houses we could afford, stripped our communities for parts.
13:56Hell, they bought the Boston Red Sox.
14:02And Susan Collins has never met a war she didn't like.
14:08She's been supporting endless wars since I was a teenager and I know I had to fight in two of
14:13them.
14:14Senator Collins, I got blown up while you handed out billions of dollars to defense companies that invest in you.
14:23Sorry, that you're invested in.
14:29You and your friends profited.
14:32And my friends died.
14:35Susan Collins has voted to send billions of our taxpayer dollars to fund other people's wars.
14:44Susan Collins, how do you justify closing hospitals in Maine while using our tax dollars to destroy them halfway around
14:53the world?
15:00If you reflect Maine's values, why are you funding masked agents who are ripping our neighbors off the streets, driving
15:08them off in unmarked vans?
15:09That is not the freedom that I serve four tours defending.
15:16If you are an independent voice, why do you vote with Donald Trump 95% of the time?
15:26If you're so bipartisan, why are you deciding vote to put Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court?
15:35The deciding vote to defund our healthcare and our hospitals?
15:41Why did you, why did you rubber stamp the greatest redistribution of wealth from the working class to the ruling
15:50class in the history of our nation?
15:57Susan Collins is only bipartisan when it doesn't matter.
16:04Susan Collins calls herself the gold standard of common sense.
16:10Common sense would be Mainers not having to choose between seeing a doctor or paying your mortgage.
16:17Common sense would be banning billionaires from buying elections.
16:21And it would also be giving workers the same seat at the table as CEOs.
16:26Common sense would be a minimum wage that's a living wage.
16:31It would be keeping our hospitals open and our schools funded and our kids from having to fight in another
16:37generation of forever wars.
16:48Common sense would be releasing the Epstein files.
17:00Should be unafraid of upsetting the wannabe king to whom Susan Collins bows.
17:08Susan Collins said she would only serve two terms.
17:14She's now running for her sixths.
17:17She has worked in politics longer than Joe Biden.
17:24She hasn't held a town hall since I was in eighth grade.
17:31I've held 83 town halls in the past eight months.
17:44What are you trying to hide Senator Collins?
17:49Now the truth is Susan Collins doesn't serve us.
17:54She serves Donald Trump.
17:57She serves the Epstein class.
17:59She serves her corporate donors and the corrupt political system that has rigged the economy against us.
18:09She does not serve us and so we will defeat Susan Collins.
18:26We will take back this Senate seat.
18:29We will take back our power.
18:34And when we do, I want you to imagine what it will feel like when we hold Trump and his
18:42criminal enterprise to account.
18:47When we end prescription drug price gouging.
18:53When a trip to the grocery store to the gas station doesn't break the bank.
18:58When everyone who was born in Maine, raised in Maine and who loves Maine can stay in Maine.
19:13When we codify Roe v. Wade.
19:23When we pass Medicare for all.
19:34But when we defend our democracy, our country, once we've defended our freedom, let it be a different kind of
19:41freedom.
19:43Not merely a romantic freedom, but a freedom that is real.
19:48That is material.
19:50The freedom to start a family.
19:52To raise your kids under a roof that is your own.
19:56With the promise of security and the guarantee of time.
20:02Time to build.
20:04Time to create.
20:06Time to love.
20:09The freedom to live lives not of struggle and scraping by, but of dignity and fulfillment.
20:18May the eyes of the nation are upon us.
20:25And while they are here, please go to grantforsenate.com and make a donation or sign up or sign up
20:34to be a volunteer.
20:44There's an old saying.
20:47As Maine goes, so goes the nation.
20:51If you want to stop war with Iran and end the forever wars, if you want to give workers the
21:00raise they deserve, seniors the security they worked for, you want to bring back Roe v. Wade, as Maine goes,
21:08so goes the nation.
21:10If you want to stop a Trump family slush fund, their ballroom, their deals with Saudi princes and tech oligarchs,
21:18if you want to stop the corruption, as Maine goes, so goes the nation.
21:24If we want to dismantle ICE, win back the Senate, check Donald Trump's power and take back ours, as Maine
21:34goes, so goes the nation.
21:37Together, we will defeat Susan Collins.
21:44Together, we will win back this Senate seat.
21:58And together, we are going to take back our power.
22:04Thank you very much.
22:06Thank you, Maine.
22:08Thank you, Maine.
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