For nearly two months, Graham Platner’s bid for the U.S. Senate was marked by momentum and bravado as the political newcomer drew big crowds to his town halls and he channeled Democratic voters’ hopes for a newer, brasher kind of candidate.
During an interview in late September, he said, “I’ll just say, it’s been very surreal.”
Reality has arrived over the past week. Now comes a test of Democratic primary voters' risk aversion.
Gov. Janet Mills, recruited by Democratic leaders in the Senate, entered the race last week. A barrage of revelations about Platner’s prolific social media history dating back to 2009 soon followed. Taken together, the deleted posts paint a complex picture of a very online combat veteran who, in his words, was lonely and disillusioned and plowed those feelings onto Reddit, a site where the social media sweepstakes for attention can get toxic.
Perhaps Platner’s explanation for denigrating cops, rural white voters and questioning the tipping habits of Black people on Reddit seemed relatable to people who frequent similar spaces. But in the context of a high stakes U.S. Senate race, the selectively leaked posts to national media outlets — as well as the Platner campaign’s extraordinary disclosure this week that he has a tattoo associated with Nazis — have raised questions about the oyster farmer’s electability against Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, if not in the Democratic primary.
Jordan Wood, one of several other Democrats vying for the chance to take on Collins, said the tattoo is “disqualifying.”
“With Donald Trump and his sycophants demonizing Americans, spewing hate, and running roughshod over the Constitution, Democrats need to be able to condemn Trump’s actions with moral clarity. Graham Platner no longer can,” Wood said in a statement.
Platner’s former political director, Genevieve McDonald, seems to think he’s cooked. She resigned last week after the first disclosure of Reddit posts. She’s since blasted Platner’s tattoo revelation and his explanation, claiming he knew it was a problem before his political opponents started whispering to some journalists about it. Platner’s campaign denies this, calling McDonald a disgruntled former employee. He maintains the tattoo was the result of a drunken adventure with fellow Marines on leave in Croatia when he was a 23-year-old rifleman, that he never knew its affiliation with the Nazi SS and that he cleared background checks when he later enlisted with the Army, which does not allow tattoos of hate symbols.
Sign up Maine Public’s Political Pulse Newsletter!
Sign up for the Political Pulse Newsletter for the latest news from the State House and beyond.
“I absolutely would not have gone through life having this on my chest if I knew that — and to insinuate that I did is disgusting,” he said in a statement.
Platner announced Tuesday he would have it covered. The next day he did, offering WGME a “first look” by removing his shirt on camera to prove it. Has that ever happened in a U.S. Senate race? Unclear. But Platner’s campaign seems to be betting that abandoning campaign convention is the path out of this mess.
Maybe it is. On Wednesday, Platner drew more than 500 attendees to his town hall in Ogunquit where he tore into the political establishment.
“If they thought that ripping my life to pieces — trying to destroy it — was going to make me think that I shouldn’t undertake this project, they clearly have not spent a lot of time around Marines,” he said.
A poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center shows why the Platner revelations by his opponents have come so early. The survey of more than 506 Democratic primary voters shows the oyster farmer with a big lead over Mills. It was conducted between Oct. 16 and Oct. 21, covering the early days of the Reddit controversy and ending just as the tattoo disclosure landed.
The survey was validation for Platner’s besieged campaign.
“We’re still f---ing standing,” senior advisor Joe Cavello tweeted.
Still, UNH pollsters warned that the survey doesn’t capture the volatility of a primary more than six months away.
And it will undoubtedly get rockier for Platner. National reporters are already teasing additional forthcoming social media posts and personal revelations by opposition researchers that will be leaked in the coming days.
All of it has prompted some commentators to chastise Democratic voters for “swooning” for charismatic yet unelectable saviors. Some have compared Platner to Christine O’Donnell, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate who harnessed the 2010 tea party movement and upset Mike Castle, Delaware’s former governor and establishment pick, in that state’s Republican primary. O’Donnell was later forced to cut an ad during the general election declaring “I’m not a witch” after a video surfaced of her saying she once dabbled in witchcraft. She was ultimately crushed by Democratic Sen. Chris Coons in the general election.
While Platner’s declaration this week that “I’m not a secret Nazi” might have given some O’Donnell vibes, his high-profile supporters are sticking with him. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who endorsed Platner early and hosted him at his big Labor Day rally in Portland, told reporters this week, “He's not the only one in America who has gone through a dark period. People go through that, he has apologized for the stupid remarks, the hurtful remarks that he made, and I'm confident that he's going to run a great campaign and that he's going to win."
The other primaries
The Democratic primaries for governor and Maine’s 2nd Congressional District look tame when compared to the emerging battle royale between Mills and Platner. But a few recent developments suggest that these, too, will be spirited contests.
Dr. Nirav Shah became the latest Democrat to join the governor’s race this week. While Shah doesn’t have the political experience of primary opponents such as former Senate President Troy Jackson and former House Speaker Hannah Pingree, Shah enters the race with immediate, statewide name recognition because of his role leading Maine’s COVID response.
It’s far too early to tell whether Shah’s pandemic popularity among some (but not all) Mainers will translate into votes during a crowded primary. But it’s safe to say that he’s the only candidate who’s had candy bars and beers named for him and who inspired “In Shah We Trust” T-shirts and other paraphernalia back when many Mainers were tuning into his daily COVID briefings.
Shah argues that his managerial experience running the Maine CDC and subsequent post as second-in-charge at the U.S. CDC offsets any lack of political experience.
“I’ve certainly worked with the Legislature extensively here during COVID,” Shah said in an interview. “I’ve worked with the U.S. Congress extensively during my time to secure additional funding for the U.S. CDC. I’m also the one candidate who has extensive experience with the judicial branch as well.”
Meanwhile, one of the men challenging U.S. Rep. Jared Golden in the 2nd District primary, state auditor Matt Dunlap, picked up a notable endorsement this week from Golden’s predecessor.
Former Democratic Rep. Mike Michaud held the 2nd District seat for 12 years before opting to challenge Republican Gov. Paul LePage in the 2014 gubernatorial contest.
Like Golden, Michaud was a centrist or moderate Democrat who managed to hold onto the seat in Maine’s sprawling, blue-collar district. And Michaud consistently won by much larger margins than Golden has, although the electorate in the 2nd has veered harder to the right over the past decade.
In a video on Tuesday, Michaud endorsed Dunlap without mentioning Golden.
“And let’s be clear: Matt knows how to win,” Michaud said. “He’s done it his entire career. And with your help and the people of Maine, he’ll do it again. You deserve a better choice. That better choice is Matt Dunlap.”
Golden’s campaign responded by pointing to Michaud’s 5-point loss in 2014 to LePage, who is the presumptive GOP nominee for the 2nd District seat.
“When it comes to assessing who has what it takes to beat Paul LePage, I’m not sure I’d take the advice of someone with a record of losing every county in the District to him,” Golden campaign manager Jordan Kathleen Burns said in a statement.
GOP gov hopefuls debate
The Republican primary contest for governor is even larger, with eight declared candidates so far.
As with the Democratic field, there’s no clear frontrunner at this point. The most recent person to join the race is Jonathan Bush, a health care entrepreneur who is also the cousin of former President George W. Bush and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. But the field may not be set yet.
All eight of the current candidates – Bush, Ken Capron, Bobby Charles, David Jones, James Libby, Owen McCarthy, Ben Midgley and Robert Wessels – participated in a debate last Saturday sponsored by the Maine Republican Party in Augusta.
Over roughly two hours, the eight contenders fielded questions about the rising costs of housing, food, energy and health care as well as about large-scale illegal marijuana grow operations and election integrity. There was, of course, plenty of bashing of Mills, the Democratic-controlled Legislature and Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat who is also running for governor. And there were also lots of pledges to stop state support for noncitizens, lower taxes, reduce regulation and rein in state government. Each candidate also voiced support for President Trump and his agenda.
You can watch the full debate on the Maine GOP’s YouTube page here.
Another internal challenge to Collins?
Bill Clarke, a 63-year-old entrepreneur from Poland, recently announced that he is exploring a primary challenge against Collins. He hasn’t filed his candidacy paperwork yet. But if he does, Clarke would be the third candidate — alongside Carmen Vincent Calabrese and Daniel Smeriglio — to announce a primary campaign against the five-term incumbent.
“I love Susan Collins,” Clarke said in a press release. “Don't get me wrong. Susan is a very nice lady. I just think it's time for Senator Collins to retire from the Senate and take a teaching position at the University of Maine.”
If they qualify for the ballot, any challenger will likely face an extremely steep uphill climb against Collins even with ranked-choice voting. That’s because state and national party leaders see Collins as key to keeping the seat Republican and maintaining GOP control of the Senate.
Primers on Questions 1 and 2
We’ve been talking a lot about the 2026 elections here. But Mainers will vote on two referendum questions in less than two weeks.
Question 1 would require voters to show a photo ID to cast a ballot and would make numerous changes to Maine’s absentee voting process, including eliminating two days of absentee balloting. Question 2 would institute a so-called “red flag” gun law that would allow family members and household members to directly petition a judge to order someone to temporarily surrender their firearms if they pose a danger to themselves or others.
You can find our previous deep-dives on the two questions on the Maine’s Political Pulse page.
This edition of Maine's Political Pulse was written by State House bureau chief Steve Mistler and State House correspondent Kevin Miller and produced by news editor Andrew Catalina. Read past editions or listen to the Political Pulse podcast at mainepublic.org/pulse.
