BLUE HILL, Maine — Controversial oyster farmer and Marine veteran Graham Platner simply gained Maine’s Democratic Senate main Tuesday night time.
The Related Press referred to as the race for Platner at 9:23 pm ET, simply over an hour after the polls closed in Maine. He jumped to an early lead with 75% of the vote with simply 8% of the ballots counted, beating Gov. Janet Mills, who stopped campaigning in April.
The scandal-plagued Dem will face GOP Sen. Susan Collins in November in one of many nation’s best Senate races.
Early voting in Maine kicked off on Might 11, earlier than two former girlfriends of Platner’s accused him final week of bodily abuse and different troubling habits.
Then, on the eve of the first, Platner’s former marketing campaign political director Genevieve McDonald wrote a damning Washington Publish op-ed warning Maine voters that he was unfit to change into a senator.
“I give up the marketing campaign in October, disturbed by what I realized in regards to the candidate and anxious about his potential impression on the Democratic Occasion’s prospects in my dwelling state,” McDonald warned.
McDonald had additionally confirmed on the report that Platner’s spouse disclosed to her that the candidate had sexted at the least half a dozen different girls for the reason that pair married in 2023.
Platner was found to have an account on Kik, an nameless chat platform infamous for facilitating hookups and sexual messages to younger ladies.
The Democrat’s profile featured a mirror selfie of him shirtless, with a towel round his waist whereas his hand and cellphone lined up his infamous “Totenkopf” tattoo.
Voters at polling facilities in Portland and Augusta instructed The Publish they have been nonetheless supporting Platner — although some solid their vote for him reluctantly.
“I imply he’s doing that himself,” Kristina Areccha, instructed The Publish when requested about whether or not the scandals make Platner look unhealthy. “The place is the bar in politics?”
Many dedicated Platner backers cited their eagerness to see Collins lose as their prime cause for voting for him and referred to as for pols to have a shot at redemption. Others mentioned they merely need to see new blood despatched to Washington, DC.
“I feel we’d like new individuals in our authorities. We will’t simply maintain recycling the identical previous individuals. It’s simply not working,” Kim Sorensen, 62, instructed The Publish.
“I’m a bit hesitant, I actually was.”
Final week, Platner was rocked by a New York Instances report detailing his “unsettling” habits towards former flames.
One of many girls, Lyndsey Fifield, alleged that Platner rough-housed her, on one event pulling her out of a cab by the wrists and at one other level twisting her arm behind her again earlier than trapping her in a room. Platner has denied Fifield’s claims, which he described as “politically motivated.”
Critically, Fifield claimed that Platner was totally conscious of the Nazi origins of his tattoo, describing the image as “my Totenkopf” and claiming he received it alongside his comrades as a result of “they have been like a dying unit, they have been killers” like Hitler’s SS.
The outlet reviewed messages Fifield despatched to mates in August 2025, wherein she instructed them that Platner “has a Nazi tattoo on his chest” weeks earlier than the physique artwork turned public data.
“Properly, she actually didn’t ship that textual content to me,” Platner instructed MS NOW hours after the Instances story was revealed when pressed about how she knew it was a Nazi tattoo whereas he supposedly didn’t.
The Democrat’s since-deleted Reddit feed has additionally revealed a trove of wildly offensive feedback, together with recommendations that sexual assault victims must “take some duty,” trashing of a Purple Coronary heart recipient veteran, slander of rural People as racist, and defenses of urinating on useless Taliban troopers.
“I feel it’s regarding. You need to have good character for people who find themselves in there,” voter Ann Farrer, who’s in her 40s and browse the bombshell New York Instances piece on Platner, instructed The Publish. “But in addition, individuals don’t have to be angels to be good representatives.”
“Proper now I’m impartial on this half.”
Farrer mentioned she voted for Platner within the main however has voted for Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) up to now and is open-minded about November.
Platner served within the Marines within the early 2000s, the place he did excursions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Extra just lately, he has been an oyster farmer, although monetary disclosures checklist his mom’s restaurant as his solely buyer.
If Platner have been to comply with step apart by July 13, there’s a path for Democrats to exchange him as their nominee for Maine’s Senate seat, broadly seen as their prime pickup alternative within the higher chamber for 2026.
Platner has a 7.4 share level edge over Collins within the RealClearPolitics polling combination, which underestimated her standing by double digits throughout her 2020 re-election bid.
