For a moment, it looked like Democrats in Maine had it all lined up.
Marine veteran and oyster farmer Graham Platner jumped into the U.S. Senate race in August, aiming to take down Republican incumbent Susan Collins. Then Democratic Gov. Janet Mills—twice elected statewide—decided to run, too.
What started as a promising field quickly turned into a clash of generations and ideology. Platner ran on a populist, anti-billionaire message that energized progressives and earned an early nod from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Some even nicknamed him “Maine’s Mamdani.” (Depending on who’s saying it, that could be a compliment.)
Mills, meanwhile, became the establishment favorite. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and national Democrats had aggressively recruited her, believing that her moderate record and broad appeal made her the one who could finally unseat Collins. On paper, Mills looked like the ideal recruit for one of the few Senate seats Democrats can realistically flip next year. (They’ll need four for a majority.)
Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks at a town hall in Ogunquit, Maine, on Oct. 22.
So how did Democrats in Maine manage to blow things up so fast?
A seat considered a toss-up could easily stay red—and mainly because Democrats can’t seem to get out of their own way.
One problem is Collins. She’s managed to overcome electoral headwinds that toppled other Republicans. To win, Democrats need an unusually strong candidate.
Mills isn’t a weak one. Despite her generally progressive record, her recruitment by Schumer and other national leaders instantly branded her as the “centrist” in a race with a very left-leaning challenger.
But if elected, she would begin her six-year Senate term at age 79. And partly because of that, she has said she’d serve only a single term.
Mills has also taken positions that have irked progressives. She recently told reporters she supports keeping the filibuster in place, breaking with most of the Senate Democratic Caucus.
“I would certainly want to retain the filibuster,” Mills said recently, according to the Bangor Daily News. “When it comes to Trump appointing 200 judges with very questionable qualifications, I would want to have a say in those judgeships, for instance,” she added, seemingly unaware that the filibuster is largely not in place for judicial nominees.
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills greets lawmakers in 2024 at the State House in Augusta, Maine.
Some Democrats have also quietly bristled at the Schumer-Mills dynamic. The image of the 74-year-old Senate minority leader coaxing a 77-year-old governor into running has drawn inevitable comparisons to President Joe Biden’s 2024 run—and raised questions about stamina, optics, and how much appetite voters have left for another older nominee.
But Platner’s candidacy is now awash in scandals.
When he entered the race, his rugged resume—Marine veteran, oyster farmer, outsider—helped him catch fire. His left-wing populism and focus on Maine’s cost-of-living problems fueled more than $4 million in fundraising, large crowds across the state, and endorsements from progressive groups and labor unions. He quickly carved out an identity as the insurgent everyman—everything Mills is not.
Then came the baggage. CNN’s KFile uncovered a series of inflammatory Reddit posts from Platner’s pre-politics days, mainly between 2020 and 2021.
In since-deleted comments, he wrote, “I got older and became a communist,” and said that “all” cops were bastards. Elsewhere, in response to a thread titled “White people aren’t as racist or stupid as Trump thinks,” he replied, “Living in white rural America, I’m afraid to tell you they actually are.”
Then his scandals got even worse.
In 2007, during a night he was driving and in the Marines, Platner got a tattoo that resembles a prominent Nazi emblem. After the story broke, Platner hastily got it covered with another tattoo. He claims he did not know the original tattoo’s Nazi ties until recently.
Soon after the tattoo came to light, The Advocate discovered more of Platner’s Reddit posts, which involved anti-LGBTQ+ stories and homophobic slurs.
In this photo provided by WGME, Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, shows a cover-up tattoo that had previously been an image recognized as a Nazi symbol, on Oct. 22.
He’s apologized for all of it, insisting those comments don’t reflect who he is now.
“That was very much me fucking around the internet,” he told CNN, regarding the Reddit posts. “I don’t want people to see me for who I was in my worst internet comment—or even, frankly, who I was in my best internet comment. … I don’t think any of that is indicative of who I am today, really.”
The fallout was swift. Platner’s political director, former state Rep. Genevieve McDonald, resigned last week, writing that his remarks “were not known to me when I agreed to join the campaign, and they are not words or values I can stand behind in a candidate.”
All of which gives Mills’ campaign some breathing room—though her age and electability questions haven’t gone anywhere. If she were to beat both Platner and Collins, she’d become the oldest freshman senator in U.S. history.
After a presidential election defined by concerns over age and fitness, Mills will have to prove she’s up for six years in the Senate—and that her party, often divided against itself, can still rally behind a candidate strong enough to take down Collins.
For now, that remains an open question.
A new University of New Hampshire poll released Thursday shows Platner leading Mills in the primary, 58% to 24%. The survey was conducted Oct. 16-21, which only partly overlaps with the first reports of his scandals.
Whether Platner can hold that lead depends on how well he weathers the backlash—and whether there’s more waiting to surface, which seems to be a decent bet.
Maine Democrats have a complicated choice ahead. And for a party that badly needs a win, it’s not a great look that one of their best pickup opportunities may once again slip through their fingers.
