Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., used a Newsmax appearance Tuesday to torch Maine Democrat Senate hopeful Graham Platner as a manufactured candidate his party is willing to defend at any cost, weighing in hours after polls opened in a primary that could shape the fight for the upper chamber next year.

Schmitt cast Platner, a Marine veteran and oyster farmer leading the Democratic primary field for the right to take on five-term Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in November, as a "spoiled rich kid who's like cosplaying as like a guy you'd have a beer with," and predicted Maine voters would reject him.

Schmitt's broadside on "Rob Schmitt Tonight" came against a backdrop of cascading controversies that have engulfed Platner's campaign in its final weeks, including a chest tattoo widely identified as resembling the Totenkopf, an SS skull-and-crossbones symbol; Reddit posts minimizing sexual assault; sexting allegations confirmed in part by his own campaign; and newly surfaced posts about sexual activities in portable toilets.

Platner has said he was unaware of the tattoo's Nazi association when he got it in Croatia in 2007 and has since had it covered.

"The Democrats are so desperate to find, like a regular dude to run for office that doesn't believe in like 85 genders and is a total creeper that they settled on this guy," Schmitt said, accusing Democrat leaders of failing to vet Platner because, in his telling, "they're hell-bent on power and control, and they want to pack the court, and they want to add states of the union."

He framed the party's response to allegations Platner mistreated women as proof that "all this nonsense that they've lectured everybody about, about believe all women, they don't believe any of that."

Senate Democrat leaders have stuck with Platner.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who initially backed Democrat Maine Gov. Janet Mills before she suspended her campaign in April, reaffirmed his endorsement in recent days, telling reporters, "We're going to beat Susan Collins and take back the Senate."

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has called Platner an "excellent candidate" and cast the GOP onslaught as oligarchic. Republican-aligned groups have reserved roughly $99 million in advertising through the end of 2026, compared with about $44 million on the Democrat side.

Schmitt seized on Platner's anti-billionaire rhetoric to argue the candidate is selectively applying his own principles.

Federal filings show Platner's campaign accepted $7,000 from George Soros, $7,000 from Pat Stryker, $5,000 from Jon Stryker and $1,503 from Jennifer Pritzker in May, according to an OpenSecrets review, even as Platner has called to "ban billionaires buying elections."

Schmitt cast the contrast as fatal: "He's a hypocrite. He's a phony. He again, he's some spoiled rich kid who's acting like he's something he's not. And I think voters are pretty smart. If anything, I think people can spot a phony."

A UMass Lowell/YouGov poll of 650 likely Maine voters released June 4 showed Platner leading Collins 48%-43% in a hypothetical general election, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points.

Tuesday is primary election day in Maine.

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