Maine’s Graham Platner was seen as a potent populist challenger to incumbent GOP Sen. Susan Collins. But revelations about his Nazi-linked tattoo, charged social media posts and past treatment of women have Democratic leaders debating whether to pull their support. Either choice might cost the party a shot at winning the Senate in November.
Democrats should “cut Platner loose,” David Frum said at The Atlantic. Republicans in 2017 ditched Alabama’s Roy Moore over revelations about his pursuit of underage girls as a thirtysomething adult. GOP leaders then had to “choose between character and power.” Now it is time for Democrats to “muster equal shrewdness and toughness.” Other observers disagree. Democratic critics must “stop submarining” Platner, Michael Tomasky said at The New Republic. The party should stick with the candidate unless there are revelations “involving murder, rape or a taste for child pornography.” That is admittedly a “low bar,” but Collins has spent her public career helping Republicans “pick the pockets of working-class people.”
‘Scandal fatigue’
The party is “betraying its own values” if it does not denounce Platner, Michael A. Cohen said at MS NOW. The evidence suggests he is a “moral and political train wreck” with an “unceasing drumbeat of scandals about him.” The latest revelations include reporting that he has been “volatile, unfaithful and physically threatening” to the women in his life. Supporting Platner “opens up Democrats to charges of hypocrisy” in their criticisms of Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton and risks “losing both the Maine Senate race and their souls.”
Democrats’ chances of retaking the Senate now depend on a “baggage-laden candidate with clear character issues and a sketchy past,” Nia-Malika Henderson said at Bloomberg. “Scandal fatigue” could dampen enthusiasm for Platner, but America’s “ultra-polarized” politics could also “work the other way, hardening support for Platner.” It is a dynamic that has worked for GOP candidates like President Donald Trump and Paxton, who have both succeeded “despite a raft of scandals.” After years of criticizing Trump’s transgressions, “Democratic voters face a character test of their own.”
‘Fed up with rolling revelations’
“Unfortunately for Graham Platner, he needs women on his side to win,” Steve Collins said at the Portland Press Herald. Independent and Democratic women voters in Maine are “increasingly fed up with rolling revelations” about the candidate’s past, and social media is “full of Maine women who say they’re no longer buying what Platner’s selling.” Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who suspended her campaign in April, could pick up votes in Tuesday’s primary as a result.
Critics “at the national level misunderstand” his populist campaign, Platner said Friday to supporters, per Politico. “They think this is a race about me, but it isn’t.” Platner’s supporters remain similarly “unfazed” by the revelations, said The Wall Street Journal. The scandals demonstrate “that he is a real person,” Maine voter Amanda Nicholson said to the outlet.
The populist candidate is facing a series of scandals
