Platner wins Democratic Senate nomination in Maine

BLUE HILL, Maine — Graham Platner, the combat veteran and oyster farmer virtually unknown outside this corner of Maine a year ago, officially clinched the Democratic nomination in the state’s US Senate primary election Tuesday night, according to the Associated Press.

Though Platner’s meteoric political rise has been improbable, the outcome was a foregone conclusion as he faced minimal opposition after his only serious rival among Democrats, Governor Janet Mills, suspended her Senate campaign in April.

But with Platner rocked by damaging allegations in recent weeks, his margin of victory will provide a measure of his political resilience. Mills’s name was still on the primary ballot, and some Democrats here still withheld support despite Platner’s being the presumptive nominee.

At Platner’s election night party in Blue Hill, the Downeast town where he was born, supporters chattered about vote margins while homemade signs that said “shuck the oligarchy” were displayed on walls alongside photos from Platner’s many events across the state during the primary.

Taking the stage with his wife, Amy Gertner, the candidate stood behind a lectern bearing a sign that said, “They don’t know Maine.”

It was a new message for Platner, reflecting the backlash among his supporters to the intense national scrutiny on the Democratic candidate. And it wound up being his biggest applause line of the night.

In his roughly 20-minute remarks, Platner acknowledged the bruising primary campaign and committed to winning over Democrats who may not have supported him. Most notably, however, he didn’t waste time pivoting to his general election foe: GOP Senator Susan Collins.

Platner attacked the five-term senator as a “spineless” and “corrupt” incumbent, and sketched out the contours of his general election case against her, focusing on her votes in favor of the War in Iraq, her confirmation vote for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and the fact that she has not held an open town hall event in decades.

It’s ground Collins’s previous Democratic opponents have traveled. In 2020, she easily dispatched a well-funded challenger, Sara Gideon, even though Gideon led nearly all polls of the race.

But Platner’s staunchly populist spin is a distinctly new approach, and it was on full display in his speech on Tuesday night as he attacked Collins over her corporate donors and connections.

“I will be a senator for the people who cannot afford to buy a senator,” Platner declared.

Related: Analysis | James Pindell: With the primary over, welcome to Platner purgatory summer

This midterm election environment is set to favor Democrats, who are increasingly bullish about their hopes of flipping the Senate due to President Trump’s abysmal approval ratings.

And many Democrats are hopeful Collins’s brand of centrism has faded amid her political maneuvering and the uncompromising nature of the Trump era.

Initially, Platner comfortably led Collins in preliminary public polls of the general election, but that margin appears to have tightened as the Democrat continues to be dogged by controversies about his past — and before deep-pocketed outside backers of Collins have spent much money attacking him.

Republican National Committee chairman Joe Gruters called Platner “easily the most toxic candidate” of the election cycle. “The fact that Democrats have embraced him in service of a radical socialist agenda has placed the final nail in the coffin of their chances to win Maine in November,” he said in a statement

Meanwhile, in interviews with a dozen Democrats who turned out to vote in the primary, there emerged confidence about Platner’s chances of finally defeating Collins but also flashes of serious uneasiness about the campaign ahead.

Mark Lavallee, an insurance agent who cast his vote in the college town of Orono, is supporting Platner and believes the scandals aren’t sticking.

“A lot of folks I talk with are less concerned with racy texts and more concerned about his platform and what he hopes to accomplish,” he said, referring to reports by The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal about explicit texts Platner sent to women who were not his wife, after his marriage in late 2023.

But several Democratic voters, even those backing Platner, are not so sure.

Katherine Allen, a professor at the University of Maine, said she doesn’t know if Platner can beat Collins.

“I started out being pretty excited about Graham Platner — I liked what he was saying and his priorities, he was endorsed by people I respect, like Bernie Sanders,” Allen said outside the polling place in Orono. “When news came to light about his past that was disturbing, it gave me some serious pause.”

Some Democrats showed up to vote for candidates other than Platner in the primary, and said they’re working through a more fundamental question: whether they can support him at all, even against Collins.

“I was not a Graham Platner fan from early on, for a number of reasons, before some of the last stories came out,” said Lisa Wahlstrom, a retiree from Bangor. She said she wanted to learn more about how post-traumatic stress disorder, which Platner said he suffered from after multiple deployments to Iraq, might have affected his behavior.

“But the stuff that’s come out about him about women — it’s values stuff,” she said.

Barring recent stories in the Wall Street Journal and the Times, which alleged Platner behaved poorly as a husband and boyfriend — and included accusations he got physical with one ex-girlfriend — Wahlstrom said she would “probably hold my nose” and vote for him over Collins.

Now, “I honestly can’t tell you what I’m going to do,” she said. (Platner has denied ever getting violent or physically intimidating.)

Some Democrats, though, have seemed to credit Platner for admitting to mistakes and acknowledging he was, in the past, a bad partner — even if they still harbor misgivings.

“I’m a believer that you carry your integrity with you,” said Geoff Gratwick, a professor and former Democratic state senator, in Orono. “In ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t vote for him. In these circumstances, Susan Collins is one of my least favorite people.”

Heading into primary day, several of Platner’s key allies in Maine continued to express confidence he remains the right person to take on Collins, including Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, one of five high-profile Democrats running for governor of Maine, and who lost to Collins herself in 2014.

“I think Graham Platner is going to beat Susan Collins,” Bellows told the Globe in Bangor on Tuesday morning. “He’s speaking to people who have been left out and left behind.”

Supporters of Platner hoped he might clear at least 60 percent of the primary vote to demonstrate the breadth and depth of his support among Democrats — a threshold he seemed to be clearing as early returns rolled in.

Bellows, as well as fellow gubernatorial hopeful Democrat Hannah Pingree, dismissed the idea that Platner needed to hit a particular benchmark to make clear Democrats are fully behind his campaign.

One Democratic voter who isn’t supporting Platner, however, said his goal on Tuesday was not to send a message.

“I almost feel like it’s too late for a message,” said Ross Whitford, a law office administrator from Bangor, who planned to rank Costello first. “For me, it’s more, who can I vote for that I feel OK with.”

Regardless of his vote share on Tuesday, Platner now has a five-month sprint to assemble a winning coalition to defeat Collins — one that will have to include as many Democrats as possible in this purple state, as well as independents who have previously voted for Collins.

A few hours before polls closed, a steady stream of voters exited the polls in Ellsworth, where Platner’s campaign headquarters is located.

Paul Markosian, a retired cafe owner, had just punched his ballot for Platner — whom he has known since the candidate was in grade school. They were neighbors in nearby Sullivan, and Markosian was a business partner of Platner’s mother.

Markosian believes Platner’s talents as a communicator and his message mean that he is Democrats’ best shot to finally defeat Collins.

“Even with the baggage that’s come out,” he said, “he has an edge on almost anyone.”