Republicans embrace Platner as midterm boogeyman

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Republicans are embracing Graham Platner, the controversial Democrat aiming to oust Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), as a new boogeyman in their fight to hold on to the Senate this fall.

Platner, a progressive combat veteran and oyster farmer whose insurgent Senate bid has taken Maine politics by storm, easily won the Democratic primary last week despite a growing list of controversies, including revelations around a sexting scandal and reports of problematic behavior with former girlfriends.

While Democrats have stood by Platner as their Senate nominee in the must-win Pine Tree State, Republicans have decried the other side of the aisle for rallying around the candidate and cast his bid as emblematic of the party’s broader struggles.

“He is the poster boy for the Democrat party,” Republican strategist Ford O’Connell said. “This match-up may have implications in other races because all the Republican has to do is turn around to someone like [Democratic Senate candidate James] Talarico in Texas: ‘Do you support Graham Platner?’”

“I mean, this is the gift that keeps on giving,” he added. “If the Republicans are smart, they’ll make Platner the poster boy for the 2026 midterms.”

On top of the headlines about Platner’s former romantic partners, he also faced backlash over a now-covered chest tattoo that resembled Nazi insignia and controversial since-deleted Reddit posts.

Platner has denied any allegations of physical roughness with former partners, repeatedly said he was unaware of the tattoo’s likeness to a Totenkopf and chalked up the social media posts to his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder following his military deployments.

When asked about the string of controversies last week, Platner told MS NOW that “there’s nothing out there that’s actually concerning.”

“People will make everything seem very concerning because that’s what people do in politics,” he continued. “But you know, I think the thing about all of this is, what I find to be kind of most curious is this is what everyone wants to make the campaign about, so we do not talk about the struggles of working Mainers.”

But Republican strategist Brian Seitchik said making Platner the foil is “absolutely the winning strategy in a 2026 campaign.”

“Democrats continually assert a faux morality when it’s convenient, but when they have someone with a Nazi tattoo who is clearly a misogynist, everyone is content to look the other way,” Seitchik said. “The fact is, this person has no business being in the Senate both from a moral perspective and a qualification perspective. There’s so much wrong with this person.”

Other Republicans, including President Trump, have also suggested Democrats would be in an uproar about Platner’s background if he were a Republican.

“He’s worse than any human being that’s ever run for office probably,” Trump told reporters last week.

Democrats largely coalesced around Platner after Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) suspended her campaign earlier this year. But many party leaders are anxious about how his scandal-laden past will impact their chance to win Maine, one of their best Senate pickup opportunities this cycle.

Regardless, Democratic leadership has rallied — even if begrudgingly — around the progressive after his primary win last Tuesday.

A statement from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), chair of Democrats’ Senate campaign arm, after last week’s primaries in Maine, Nevada and South Carolina celebrated Democrats’ path to the majority and decried Collins’s alignment with Trump.

Yet, they offered only a brief mention of Platner: “In November, Maine voters will elect Graham Platner, and we will win a Senate majority.”

Schumer was also asked on Tuesday about whether Platner can win in Maine and who he’s supporting in the Senate primary in Michigan, where the open seat is seen as another critical toss-up.

“In Michigan I’m supporting Haley Stevens, and in Maine we’re going to beat Susan Collins and take the Senate,” he told reporters, without mentioning Platner directly.

And though some national Republicans hope to use Platner’s controversies against Democrats, Lance Dutson, a Maine Republican strategist who worked on Collins’s past campaigns, cautioned the party against focusing too much on Platner.

“The D.C.-based Republicans are extremely titillated by these stories about his background, but when they go in front of Maine voters and try to make their argument that there’s something wrong with Graham Platner, it’s really difficult for them to have credibility when their president has done equal or worse,” Dutson said, taking a jab at Trump’s past controversies.

Dutson also pointed out that Platner easily bested Mills, whom Republicans initially viewed as the tougher competition.

“It’s possible that Maine voters have already shown that he’s got an immunity to these things, and that really means Republicans need to shift,” he added, noting that the GOP shouldn’t get “hung up this briar patch of personal scandal.”

The seat is one of just three Senate races that Cook Political Report considers midterm toss-ups, along with contests in Ohio and Michigan.

Collins, the longest-serving Republican woman in the Senate, has held on for five terms despite the state’s overall blue lean. But Democrats hope Maine is primed for a flip this fall as she navigates a turbulent relationship with the Trump administration.

Republicans’ Senate campaign arm issued a memo last week, first shared by Politico, warning that Democrats “are accepting Platner ‘as is’” in their fight to flip the Senate and calling on Republicans to “match that urgency immediately.”

“The lesson is simple: Graham Platner is wounded, but Democrats are not treating him as disposable,” the memo read. “They are treating him as a vehicle for Senate control.”

Susan Del Percio, a veteran Republican strategist, also pushed back on the approach the GOP has taken with Platner.

“If you want Susan Collins to win, leave her alone,” Del Percio said. “Having Republicans meddle in the Maine election is a really bad idea. She knows how to win. She won many times before. She’s probably the only Republican who knows how to win Maine.”

Still, Seitchik argued that Republicans need to keep going after Platner’s “bad policies, bad record and awful, awful moral judgment.”

“Mainers who may disagree with Susan Collins respect that she’s a serious person who votes in the best interests of Maine regardless of ideology,” he said. “That’s why she annoys the hard right as well as the hard left.”

“This is clearly a bad dude, and during the next five months, Mainers are going to learn that,” he added.

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Chuck Schumer

Haley Stevens

Janet Mills

Kirsten Gillibrand

Susan Collins

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