The scandals engulfing the Democratic senate hopeful expose a rift between the state’s provincial and nationwide identities
An indication promoting a Graham Platner city corridor in Ogunquit, Maine
(Sophie Park / Getty Pictures)
Since I moved to Maine half a decade in the past, I’ve discovered that my buddies elsewhere don’t actually sustain with the comings and goings of Maine life. For me, that’s form of the purpose of residing right here: It’s good being out of the best way, and to listen to my buddies muse wistfully, “I’ve at all times needed to go to Maine.” These are makes an attempt to solicit invites to return stick with us in Vacationland, and so they’re about as shut as my buddies to the west and the south get to asking about my new life right here. However that each one modified in August, with the shock, flash-bang Democratic Senate candidacy of 41-year-old oyster farmer Graham Platner.
Platner stormed into the 2026 Maine Senate race, which finds Democrats as soon as extra attempting to unseat the five-term GOP poster lawmaker of ineffectual “concern,” Susan Collins, with a viral video that mentioned all the proper issues about healthcare and oligarchs. Simply as vital, the video had a vibe—it made progressive Mainers’ telephones mild up with pings from of us we all know in different states. “What’s the cope with the oyster man?” my buddies in North Carolina and New York requested. “Is that this man for actual?”
Had we stumbled throughout our personal axe-handled baritone Mamdani—a good-looking younger individual pointing the finger on the proper enemies whereas wielding exceptional message self-discipline? Even when we haven’t but positioned the Joe Rogan of the left, maybe Maine had a satisfactory (if decidedly male) model of what space leftists fondly hoped can be a lobsterwoman AOC—or within the worst case, an Oliver Anthony (of “Rich Men North of Richmond” fame) with higher posture and a few good things to say about common healthcare and the VA.
To me and lots of of my neighbors, our fascination with Platner was much less about duck boots and aquaculture and extra about what he was saying. However there’s a really fuel-efficient locomotive in DC and the nationwide political media that runs on the fetishization of blue-collar politicians as outsider challengers. Put a Graham Platner within the furnace and it’ll run for months. By no means thoughts the fuzzy mistake of at all times mistaking the “working class” for “white”—and by no means thoughts Platner’s personal makes an attempt to insist on the excellence between the 2. The dictum is solely to discover a good-looking rugged white man in the proper kind of flannel shirt, and this practice’s leaving on time, and quick.
Many obligingly hopped aboard, myself included. I’ll admit that regardless that I used to work in promoting I discovered myself swept up and persuaded by Platner’s announcement video. Earlier than I knew it, I used to be speaking the ear off a poor Democratic Social gathering volunteer on the Widespread Floor Pageant in Unity, Maine, placing my title on yet another infinite e-mail checklist. There was a ready checklist for yard indicators.
Nonetheless, the character of an unknown, non-politican bursting onto the scene meant that… he was an unknown non-politician bursting onto the scene. The fundraising e-mails and texts didn’t inform us a lot that his video hadn’t, so Mainers have been principally getting data on Platner through the identical nationwide protection everybody else was following. I used to be not quoting Platner from the Portland Press-Herald to promote my mother-in-law on the candidate however as a substitute citing his look on Chris Hayes’s fashionable podcast.
Present Concern
Nonetheless, our giddiness over Platner’s marketing campaign launch was rooted in some grim regional political historical past. In 2020, we have been informed Collins was weak, much less of a strong advocate for the state’s working households and extra of a sentient Magic 8-Ball that may solely say reply hazy, strive once more. However Collins gained simply, and Democrats in Maine and past have been autopsying challenger Sarah Gideon’s decisive —and expensive—2020 loss for a while now. For too lengthy, Collins has introduced consideration to Maine for the improper causes—a Kavanaugh flip-flop right here, a deep fear there—and so it was good to get all these Hell yeah, Platner texts from buddies. It was additionally good to see the nationwide press noticing Maine politics by the eyes of veteran and oyster fisherman, versus the patina of Collins’s many shades of fake concern.
The New England pressure of Reside Free or Die libertarianism thrives in Maine. The state went for Biden in 2020, and break up its electoral vote in Kamala Harris’s favor in 2024, however continues returning Collins to the Senate. In the meantime, our second congressional district already has its personal tattooed USMC firebrand in Consultant Jared Golden (a centrist Democrat who votes with Republicans when he feels prefer it, which seems to be pretty usually). After which there’s our different US senator, Angus King, an unbiased who caucuses with the Democrats on the Bernie Sanders mannequin. I take into consideration how astroturfed tradition battle stuff like school book bans usually doesn’t fly right here, or the help our Governor Janet Mills bought defending trans athletes. Whereas Maine voters could help a hand-wringing however right-voting “average” like Collins, bad-faith Republican nonsense will get swatted away on the rim.
All of this makes the intensive nationwide political consideration zeroing in on Maine within the wake of Platner’s bigoted Reddit remark historical past and information of his Totenkopf Nazi tattoo greater than a little bit disorienting. All politics are bizarre, and the typical voter usually has at least one abstract and bizarre leaning, however I’ve realized shortly in my time right here that Maine is much less a state than a giant small city. When you CTRL-F your manner throughout most Platner items and solely discover the phrase Maine a few times, it’s a protected guess that the analyst in query is extra keen on evaluating and extolling Platner’s virtues as a logo than in diagnosing his probabilities of successful what can be a troublesome major and even dicier basic election.
The revelations about Platner’s on-line previous and pores and skin ink coincided with the official entry of Governor Mills into the Democratic major, her Schumer-backed PAC in tow. Platner’s edgelord-style pronouncements on Reddit confirmed that he has had some atrocious takes and, his launch video on the contrary, some very unhealthy vibes. However as our federal authorities is already run by the worst posters alive, the Reddit stuff didn’t actually stick.
What does have a tendency to hold round is a tattoo. Main voting will not be till subsequent June, so it stays to be seen whether or not Platner’s Totenkopf chest show can be a lot of an element then. Definitely Platner himself hasn’t helped to distance himself from the scandal in his efforts to downplay the tattoo as a drunken mistake that he one way or the other stored in place, proper subsequent to his coronary heart, for greater than 20 years. For now, we’re going through a alternative between Is he secretly evil? or Is he very silly, which I hope I don’t have to belabor are each unhealthy decisions. Even doing the proper factor can solely get you to this point, and Platner overlaying his spiritually ugly tattoo with a simply plain old ugly tattoo means we’ve now seen his nipples extra occasions than anybody bargained for. It’s embarrassing for him and us all that “Nazis are unhealthy, however—” is now a menu choice.
It seems Platner hasn’t lost much support post-Totenkopf (there’s a phrase, huh?). That’s most likely as a result of whereas folks outdoors of Maine know Mills because the governor who informed Trump “I’ll see you in courtroom” that one time and as an individual who initiatives resolve and competence, we are also aware of her unpopularity. These exhibits of energy have made her a goal for MAGA grievance and Republican ire, giving her the worst net popularity of any Democratic governor. Many individuals in Maine like her, however many additionally dislike her. Throwing an outdated, established, and disliked candidate in opposition to an outdated, established, and disliked candidate isn’t a transfer positive to spice up morale amongst Democratic voters.
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One 2020 takeaway that has caught with me was that regardless of how simply Collins’ hemming and hawing could be mocked as Beltway theater, it truly did put a long way between her and Trump for Maine voters. Paradoxically, the three-decade incumbent got here throughout as extra of an outsider candidate than Gideon. We will already see the technique repeating, with programmatic and linear advertisements popping as much as distance Collins from Trump’s least-popular insurance policies; the final one I noticed boasted of her bid to decrease heating prices for Mainers forward of winter—an enchantment seemingly cribbed from the nationwide Democratic Social gathering’s fixation on “kitchen desk points.”
It’s true that born-and-bred Mainers regard such observations as feckless hypothesis from an outsider—the identical sentiment that Platner himself has tried to faucet into in claiming that the Democratic Social gathering is “attempting to destroy my life.” As a matter of each tradition and geography, Maine is fiercely provincial, and folks right here instinctively mistrust concepts and folks “from away.” But in observing the rise, fall, stumble, and carrying on of Platner’s marketing campaign, I really feel like I’m understanding Maine politics higher, even from the neophyte view of a mere five-year resident. It’s a slender hole to sluice by, however an excellent candidate must be identified, genuine, and from right here, whereas additionally representing potential change and distinction. The trick is to not be so new and totally different that you just remind Mainers of the folks like me who hold transferring right here and spiking housing costs.
Nonetheless, in case your celebration is dropping the scrum for outsider standing to Susan Collins, you’re in bother. For my whole life (I’m Platner’s age, 41) the Democratic Social gathering has felt like a franchise of the skilled managerial class, throwing Ivy regulation graduates at each presidential marketing campaign and the identical Sarah Gideons at Senate races.
When my spouse and I scare up the cash for a sitter and head into city for a date, we are sometimes annoyed to see our plans thwarted by a large ocean liner docked in Portland Cruise Terminal. The cruise ships are immediately the tallest constructing on the town, and their arrival implies that our intimate drinks-and-dinner plans can be a irritating take a look at of vacationer tolerance. They descend after Memorial Day, lavish our state with consideration and cash, and depart us with a better restaurant and bar scene than any similarly sized city. It’s a trade-off.
In the identical vein, I perceive that simply because we don’t need to have these nationwide discussions in Maine, it doesn’t imply it’s a foul place to have them. Simply because we’ve bought odd politics doesn’t imply classes can’t be realized. We simply have to calibrate our nationwide classes in opposition to the native ones, permitting for extra provincial elements comparable to our affection for outsiders, how white and/or working class we could also be, how outdated we’re, how established or skilled we wish our leaders to be, along with many distinctions that simply don’t carry over. One such distinction that we should always maintain on to, I feel, is that we should always not have to decide on between a 77-year-old governor shaping as much as be a Sarah Gideon redux and a hubristic fortysomething oysterman who stored a Nazi tattoo for a lot too lengthy as both a Maine senator or a galvanizing nationwide determine. Whilst I perceive why Platner’s supporters are soldiering on, the Democratic Social gathering has as soon as extra left me resenting that that is the selection we’re caught with.
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