This Maine(ish) Post-Platner Tryout Says He's An Outsider, And It's Truer Than You Think
Auf Wiedersehen, Platner. Guten tag, Chicag--err .. Brunswick?
Meet Nirav Shah, one of the Democrats now running for Senate in the great state of Maine.
He’s being described as a “Maine Democrat” and the former public face of the state’s COVID response. To be clear, those things are meant to be positives. He lives in Brunswick, teaches at Colby, the whole rustic-Down-East package. A Mainer, they say.
I say “they say” because, until as recently as this past March, it’s not what Shah was saying. Not to the federal government at least.
Shah announced his run with typical Trump-based stumping last week, one of several Democrats with long government job histories moving into the gap left by the Nazi-tattooed sideshow who paraded as an everyman. But resume aside, failed gubernatorial candidate Shah still tried playing the “outsider” card in his opening play for position in the race.
Outsider indeed.
On March 24, 2026, Shah cut a $3,500 check to a congressional candidate in Illinois. The address he put on that federal filing: 2232 W Oakdale Ave, Chicago, Illinois. Not Brunswick. Not anywhere with a lobster on the sign. Chicago. He also used a Brunswick address for donations in Maine ahead of his failed run for governor and now soon-to-be-failed run for Senate. And in the same time period, too. So he’s Maine Shah for the Maine causes and Chicago Shah for the Chicago causes. Neat!
Shah actually has a lot of history in Illinois. Why just listen to his admirer, Illinois Democrat Sen. Tammy Duckworth.
High praise.
Shah is a licensed Illinois attorney, and his registration with the state bar still lists that exact same Chicago address on Oakdale. Same house. Same city. Same guy.
Of course, you don’t have to be born and raised in a place to run for its Senate seat. People move. Stuff happens. But seems like you’d want to make up your mind about where you live once you’re trying to, I dunno, claim to speak for the people who live there full time. Or at least file their paperwork that way.
But you know the old Down East saying so familiar to us all: ‘When Illinois gladhanding isn’t enough, whip out the Maine zip for a little grandstanding. And if voters turn you down for governor, wait for a Nazi’s abusive past to crop up and swoop on in.’
That’s the Chicago Maine way, after all.