{"id":309,"date":"2026-06-10T04:17:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T04:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=309"},"modified":"2026-06-10T04:17:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T04:17:59","slug":"platner-won-democrats-are-scared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=309","title":{"rendered":"Platner Won. Democrats Are Scared."},"content":{"rendered":"
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BLUE HILL, Maine \u2014 Democrats are projecting public confidence about the Maine Senate race in the wake of Graham Platner\u2019s primary victory on Tuesday, insisting they can defeat incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in November.<\/p>\n

Read more Political Reviews Are Causing a Huge Grant Backlog at the National Park Service<\/a><\/p>\n

Privately, however, many in the party are despondent about his chances, believing that his personal baggage has put a winnable race at risk and upended their path to securing a Senate majority next year. Some have written the contest off entirely, choosing to focus on other Senate races that are even more difficult for Democrats, like Iowa and Texas.<\/p>\n

Everything, from deciding how to spend their money in the general election to how they navigate what members of their own party said about Platner during the primary, is now going to have an outsized role.<\/p>\n

\u201cBroadly speaking, donors, operatives and everybody else is taking a pretty close look at this and wondering if it\u2019s worth it, or if there\u2019s going to be another shoe that drops either next week or in October,\u201d said one Democratic strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly. \u201cIt just doesn\u2019t feel worth the investment when this guy has proven to be so untrustworthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Platner spoke at his election night party Tuesday behind a podium bearing a poster reading \u201cThey Don\u2019t Know Maine.\u201d It\u2019s a message that encapsulates the campaign\u2019s argument that voters in the state will prove the naysayers wrong. But Platner\u2019s speech was largely conciliatory, at least toward the Democratic voters who\u2019ve been openly anxious about his viability.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you believe as I do that we can change our politics and change our country, then you must also believe that people can change,\u201d Platner said early in his victory speech. \u201cAnd the reason I believe that is because I have lived it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He acknowledged he had made \u201cmistakes,\u201d that he is \u201cstill far from perfect.\u201d But, he said, \u201cevery day, I wake up and I try to be a little bit better and a little bit kinder than I was the day before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, he picked his targets.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow the national pundits, the political establishment, they keep looking for that one story, that one headline, that one moment in my life that they can define the campaign by,\u201d Platner said. \u201cBut in trying so hard to understand me, they fail to understand that this is not about me at all. This is a movement about us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Platner is looking like a dream scenario for Republicans in November. Last week, The New York Times<\/u><\/span> reported on the accounts of several women who dated the oyster farmer and combat veteran, alleging past intimidating behavior toward them. His campaign also recently confirmed that he had exchanged sexually explicit texts with multiple women who weren\u2019t his wife early in their marriage. That\u2019s on top of the many inflammatory online comments he made in the past, which he\u2019s apologized for, and a tattoo that looked like a Nazi symbol, which he\u2019s since covered up.<\/p>\n

Those controversies have generated speculation<\/u><\/span> about the party moving to replace Platner as their nominee. State election law allows a swap as long as the primary winner drops out by July 13.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s a way to replace him on the ballot, I\u2019d be all for it,\u201d Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Illinois) told CNN<\/u><\/span> on Monday, even before the primary contest that pitted Platner against Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who remained on the ballot despite suspending her campaign, had played out.<\/p>\n

Now that he\u2019s secured the Democratic nomination, there\u2019s no indication that Platner is considering stepping aside. With his win on Tuesday, most Democrats are looking ahead to the general election.<\/p>\n

That included Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand, who said Collins has \u201cnever been more vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn November, Maine voters will elect Graham Platner, and we will win a Senate majority,\u201d the two New York Democrats said in a statement that made only a passing reference to the Maine Senate candidate.<\/p>\n

Ahead of polls closing, party leaders were coming to terms with the idea that it wasn\u2019t a question of whether Platner would win Tuesday, but by how much.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s sort of a bit of a parlor game in Washington about, like, what if this happened, and that next thing happened. But at the end of the day, Maine voters are pretty clear about what they think,\u201d Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minnesota), who met with Platner last week, told NOTUS. \u201cI\u2019m sure it\u2019ll be an interesting general election, but I think he can win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) said the choice for Maine voters is clear between a candidate \u201cfighting every day for working people in Maine\u201d and the incumbent senator who \u201cworks to defend a lawless Trump administration and a president who says he doesn\u2019t care about Americans\u2019 finances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Platner faces plenty of skeptics in his party who are concerned by the wave of controversies he\u2019s faced.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m troubled by it, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m focused on other races where I know the candidates and we can win, and we\u2019ve got to flip the Senate,\u201d said Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada), who endorsed Mills in the primary.<\/p>\n

Read more Social Security Is in Worse Shape Than Previously Projected: Report<\/a><\/p>\n

Democrats need to gain a net of four seats to win majority control of the Senate this year, a feat party operatives have considered increasingly possible amid a deteriorating political environment for Republicans.<\/p>\n

Maine, the only 2024 blue state with a Senate seat held by a Republican running for re-election this year, had been widely considered one of the party\u2019s best pickup opportunities, alongside races in North Carolina, Ohio and Alaska.<\/p>\n

If Democrats don\u2019t win in Maine, the party would likely need to win an additional seat in either of the deep red states of Texas or Iowa to have a chance at the majority.<\/p>\n

Voters in Maine are feeling the weight of the party\u2019s chances on their shoulders.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the pressure is immense,\u201d Scott Sell, a 43-year-old multimedia producer in Rockland who voted for Platner, told NOTUS outside a voting site in the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cConversations with people, especially my age, are hopeful and energetic, but I think underneath it all is like, there\u2019s a lot riding on this,\u201d Sell said. \u201cFlipping this Senate seat is crucial. It\u2019s a once-in-our-lifetime situation. It feels like it, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sell said he would not discount the strength of Maine\u2019s older, conservative voters.<\/p>\n

Another voter, Ken, who declined to give his last name, cast a ballot for Mills in \u201cprotest,\u201d he said. He bemoaned that Platner emerged as the front-runner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Republican attack machine is pretty strong, and I think they\u2019ve got a lot of ammo against him, just based on everything that\u2019s come in,\u201d Ken said.<\/p>\n

Still, several voters said they were confident in Platner\u2019s chances of beating Collins. \u201cIf someone told me I had to bet money, I would bet twice on Platner,\u201d said Eric Vos, an independent, after casting a ballot for him.<\/p>\n

Vos said he thinks most people in the state aren\u2019t viewing this election in terms of which party tips the scales of power in D.C. \u201cThat\u2019s for talking heads in D.C.,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Even strategists skeptical of Platner\u2019s campaign maintain he can win in November, if the political environment continues to worsen for the Republican Party. But they say that, at minimum, he\u2019s made the seat much more difficult to win than it would have been had Mills or another Democrat been the nominee.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Collins\u2019 path to keeping her seat depends on maintaining support from a cohort of mostly older moderate and independent women, many of whom vote for Democratic presidential candidates but have also been drawn to the incumbent\u2019s more moderate brand of politics, say party strategists.<\/p>\n

Platner\u2019s recent controversies, they fear, will likely repel many of those voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the 60-year-old white ladies, who are impervious to paid communication, who have voted for Susan Collins for decades, who are going to decide this election,\u201d said a second Democratic strategist, reflecting a broadly held view among many Democrats who work in Maine.<\/p>\n

Maria Chase, a Platner voter in Blue Hill, arrived at a similar assessment. It almost hurt his chances of winning her vote in the primary, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never had to make that kind of choice before of \u2018Well, do I believe this woman? Do I believe she could be lying? Would I not vote for him if I knew exactly that it was true?\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cThose are questions that I haven\u2019t really had to ask myself too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Republicans Urge White House to Name Permanent Director of National Intelligence to Free Up FISA<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now the general election in one of the highest-profile Senate races begins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-election"],"yoast_head":"\nPlatner Won. Democrats Are Scared. - Modern Home Journals<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=309\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Platner Won. 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