Graham Platner’s troubles grow in Maine, and Democrats are increasingly nervous

thehill.com

Democrats are questioning whether Graham Platner, the oyster farmer turned Maine Senate candidate, is quickly becoming a liability in one of the most important races in the upper chamber.

To win back the Senate majority, Democrats almost certainly need to see Platner defeat Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is running to save her seat in a tough year for Republicans, particularly in a state President Trump has repeatedly lost.

For weeks, Democrats have felt relatively good about Platner, who was ahead of Collins in the polls.

But as he hits controversy after controversy, the Democratic anxieties are mounting.

Just in the last week, Platner confronted revelations surrounding sexually explicit messages he sent to women while married. He traveled to Washington to meet with Democratic senators amid the news of the controversial text messages.

Democratic senators hoped there would be no more revelations; instead, The New York Times published a story Thursday evening in which several former girlfriends of Platner cast him in a negative light.

The election in Maine was supposed to be a referendum on Collins, a moderate Republican who has served in the Senate for five terms, at least in the view of Democrats.

They are now worried it may become a referendum on Platner.

“And there’s no way he’s going to win a referendum on himself,” Democratic strategist Joel Payne said. “He’s got to make sure that when Maine voters go to the ballot, they ask, ‘Am I really comfortable with Susan Collins for another six years?'”

“They’ve lost the thread on that,” Payne added.

Democratic strategist Steve Schale, who said he was “utterly exasperated” by the state of events, put it this way: “I’m glad I don’t live in Maine, and there are 5 other viable pick-up opportunities,” referring to other races in states like North Carolina and Ohio.

The Times report spotlighted several women who suggested his behavior had been problematic during past relationships. The outlet reported that Lyndsey Fifield, a Virginia conservative who said she dated Platner from 2013 to 2015, recalled that he would discuss violence and could be rough with her, though she emphasized that he did not hit or punch her.

Fifield also alleged to the Times that Platner knew before controversy swelled last year that his now-covered tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol, telling the outlet that Platner referred to the tattoo as “my Totenkopf.”

Platner vehemently denied “anything alleging physicality” and “anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was” in remarks to MS NOW about the Times’s reporting.

“In this piece, there’s a lot about my struggling, not being a good boyfriend, certainly self-medicating with alcohol, and I’ve been very upfront since the beginning of this campaign that that was a pretty dark period of my life after I came back from my combat service,” Platner told MS NOW.

“There are things in this that I absolutely will take responsibility for, and have been speaking about openly for months now, but those serious allegations are just not true,” he added.

Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, responded earlier this week to the sexting scandal, calling the media’s coverage “shameful” while vowing that she was standing by her husband.

A report from the Maine Monitor and the Bangor Daily News this week also raised questions about a claim Platner made about his past schooling. He said in October that he attended private schooling because his public school lost accreditation around 1999, but the report found the school has been accredited since 1987. A spokesperson told the outlet that Platner misspoke.

The growing pile of issues could threaten voter trust in a critical election.

“He’s always saying ‘it was a bad period of my life.’ Well, you know, that doesn’t play as well about things that have happened in the last three or four years,” said Jim Melcher, a professor of political science at the University of Maine at Farmington.

It’s also “a gift” to Collins’s campaign, though “it’s way too soon to say whether or not it’s going to hurt him in the general election,” Melcher said, suggesting that the controversy has in some ways made Platner’s supporters “even more dedicated.”

A UMass Lowell/YouGov poll released Thursday but taken before the sexting and other allegations found Platner with 48 percent support from Maine voters in a hypothetical general election, 5 points ahead of Collins’s 43 percent with another 6 percent undecided.

Another late May survey from the University of New Hampshire found Platner up 9 points over Collins, with 51 percent and 42 percent, respectively.

An internal poll from the Platner campaign released Wednesday by Public Policy Polling, found Platner with a 4 point lead over Collins, though analyst Nate Silver said the results are “not super reassuring given that internal polls typically exaggerate their candidate’s standing by 4 points or so.

Melcher said he thinks Platner “feels goaded to stay the course more than anything, because I think he and his supporters feel like they’ve gotten a bad deal out of all of all of this, and it kind of feeds their ‘fight the oligarchy’ themes,” though he noted that undecided voters, or Democrats for whom he wasn’t the first choice, may react differently.

“People keep asking me: ‘Is he going to drop out?’ No, he is not going anywhere unless something else drops, and I think that’s what the fear was in Washington.”

Democrats are eyeing a rare pickup opportunity in Maine, where Collins has held on to her Senate seat despite a blue lean throughout much of the state. It’s one of just a handful of toss-up races this cycle, and it could be make-or-break for Democrats’ hopes of taking back the Senate in the midterms.

Platner burst on to the political scene and made a surprising primary surge past Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D), one of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) top recruits, despite a growing litany of controversies that have dogged his bid.

Mills suspended her campaign in late April after what the nonpartisan Cook Political Report called “a stunning flameout” for a candidate who national Democrats “had hailed as their long-sought answer” to finally unseat Collins.

But the governor reminded Mainers this past week that she’s still on the ballot as controversy builds around Platner.

“People have the impression that I ‘withdrew’ or ‘dropped out,’ but I simply suspended active campaigning. I am still on the ballot,” Mills told the Portland Press Herald earlier in the week.

MS NOW’s Chris Hayes on Thursday, hours after the new Times reporting, asked Platner whether at any point in the past week he’d considered dropping out of the race.

“No, not once,” Platner said.

Some Democrats say that while the Platner revelations are hard to stomach, it’s tough to say whether it will sway voters.

“The Platner stuff is tricky,” Democratic strategist Christy Setzer said. “On one hand, he’s asking a lot of supporters to stand by him while allegations of inappropriate behavior continue to drop. On the other hand, I’ve worked in Maine and Mainers sure don’t like it when outsiders tell them how to feel about one of their own.”

Others are drawing the line. Cheyenne Hunt, the former Gen Z for Change executive director who helped organize against former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) amid sexual assault allegations against him in the California governor’s race, withdrew her endorsement of Platner on Thursday.

“I gave Platner a glowing endorsement when he launched his campaign for Senate because I believed in his vision for an economy that actually serves working Americans. But the information that has since come to light is inexcusable,” Hunt said.

Another strategist concurred that the troubles for Platner are growing.

“This isn’t just one or two controversies,” the strategist said. “Each week we’re learning something new. … It’s highly problematic.”

Tags Nate Silver Steve Schale Susan Collins

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