For a second, it seemed like Democrats in Maine had all of it 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—determined to run, too.
What began as a promising area shortly changed into a conflict of generations and beliefs. 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.” (Relying on who’s saying it, that may very well be a praise.)
Mills, in the meantime, turned the institution favourite. Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer and nationwide Democrats had aggressively recruited her, believing that her average file and broad enchantment made her the one who may lastly unseat Collins. On paper, Mills seemed like the perfect recruit for one of many few Senate seats Democrats can realistically flip subsequent 12 months. (They’ll want 4 for a majority.)
Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks at a city corridor in Ogunquit, Maine, on Oct. 22.
So how did Democrats in Maine handle to blow issues up so quick?
A seat thought of a toss-up may simply keep purple—and primarily as a result of Democrats can’t appear to get out of their very own method.
One downside is Collins. She’s managed to beat electoral headwinds that toppled different Republicans. To win, Democrats want an unusually sturdy candidate.
Mills isn’t a weak one. Regardless of her typically progressive file, her recruitment by Schumer and different nationwide leaders immediately branded her because the “centrist” in a race with a really left-leaning challenger.
But when elected, she would start her six-year Senate time period at age 79. And partly due to that, she has stated she’d serve solely a single time period.
Mills has additionally taken positions which have irked progressives. She just lately advised reporters she helps preserving the filibuster in place, breaking with many of the Senate Democratic Caucus.
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills greets lawmakers in 2024 on the State Home in Augusta, Maine.
Some Democrats have additionally quietly bristled on the Schumer-Mills dynamic. The picture of the 74-year-old Senate minority chief coaxing a 77-year-old governor into working has drawn inevitable comparisons to President Joe Biden’s 2024 run—and raised questions on stamina, optics, and the way a lot urge for food voters have left for an additional older nominee.
However Platner’s candidacy is now awash in scandals.
When he entered the race, his rugged resume—Marine veteran, oyster farmer, outsider—helped him catch hearth. His left-wing populism and concentrate on Maine’s cost-of-living issues fueled greater than $4 million in fundraising, giant crowds throughout the state, and endorsements from progressive teams and labor unions. He shortly carved out an id because the rebel everyman—every little thing Mills is just not.
Then got here the bags. CNN’s KFile uncovered a sequence of inflammatory Reddit posts from Platner’s pre-politics days, primarily between 2020 and 2021.
In since-deleted feedback, he wrote, “I got older and became a communist,” and stated that “all” cops have been 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 obtained even worse.
In 2007, throughout an evening he was driving and within the Marines, Platner obtained a tattoo that resembles a distinguished Nazi emblem. After the story broke, Platner unexpectedly obtained it lined with one other tattoo. He claims he didn’t know the unique tattoo’s Nazi ties till just lately.
Quickly after the tattoo got here to mild, The Advocate found extra of Platner’s Reddit posts, which concerned anti-LGBTQ+ tales and homophobic slurs.
On this photograph supplied by WGME, Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, exhibits a cover-up tattoo that had beforehand been a picture acknowledged as a Nazi image, on Oct. 22.
He’s apologized for all of it, insisting these feedback don’t replicate who he’s now.
“That was very much me fucking around the internet,” he advised CNN, relating to 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 final 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 supplies Mills’ marketing campaign some respiratory room—although her age and electability questions haven’t gone anyplace. If she have been to beat each Platner and Collins, she’d change into the oldest freshman senator in U.S. historical past.
After a presidential election outlined by issues over age and health, Mills must show she’s up for six years within the Senate—and that her occasion, typically divided towards itself, can nonetheless rally behind a candidate sturdy sufficient to take down Collins.
For now, that is still an open query.
A brand new College of New Hampshire ballot launched Thursday exhibits Platner main Mills within the main, 58% to 24%. The survey was performed Oct. 16-21, which solely partly overlaps with the primary reviews of his scandals.
Whether or not Platner can maintain that lead is determined by how nicely he weathers the backlash—and whether or not there’s extra ready to floor, which appears to be a good guess.
Maine Democrats have a sophisticated alternative forward. And for a celebration that badly wants a win, it’s not an ideal look that certainly one of their finest pickup alternatives could as soon as once more slip by means of their fingers.
