How did this happen?
Maine’s Democratic governor Janet Mills announced yesterday that she is dropping out of her campaign for the U.S. Senate. Now certifiable wacko Graham Platner is her party’s presumptive nominee for the U.S. Senate.
Mills had been regarded as having a good chance of unseating RINO Senator Susan Collins, a key piece of the Democrats’ quest to flip control of the U.S. Senate in November. Platner, in contrast, either is unelectable or should be. The RNC quickly crowed, “In November Susan Collins, a proven leader with an indisputable record of delivering for Maine, will face a Nazi sympathizing self-proclaimed communist with a record of hate-mongering and dishonesty.”
Well, the part about Platner is true, at least. He has said women who are raped are at fault. He said that blacks don’t tip. He has called called white, rural Maine dwellers stupid. He uses “fag” to describe gays. Platner praised Hamas, rationalized urinating on corpses, and has denigrated police officers. He once referred to Jesus as a “zombie” and the Virgin Mary as a “skank.” He also had a Nazi tattoo on his chest and defended it for years.
On the plus side, Platner approves of political violence, so at least in that sense he’s a mainstream 2026 Democrat.
Conservatives are confident that Platner will be an 800 lb. albatross around the necks of other Democratic candidates, as they will be placed in political zugzwang, with their choices being to condemn fellow Democrat or endorse sexism, misogyny, homophobia, bigotry, violence and blasphemy. Once again, as in 2016 when Donald Trump was running away with the Republican primaries, I don’t understand why a either political party cannot, in an extreme situation, announce that Candidate X does not represent that party’s values and therefore is rejected as a party candidate. Democrats and Republicans have an obligation to the Republic to place only competent, responsible Americans on the ballot. True, neither party is very good at doing that, but it still is an ongoing obligation.
The Democrats, to have any claim to competence and responsibly at all, should tell Platner that the party will not allow him to run as under the party banner. Let him sue, let him run as an independent, let him rant. At least they would demonstrate that the party has some standards, and cares about the public good.
Of course, we now know that today’s Democratic Party has no standards or principles, so this is a useless flight of fancy on my part.
Never mind.
In fact, it is not inconceivable that Platner can win. He was leading Mills in polling 2-1. And Trump Derangement among Democrats and progressives is so rampant that many would literally vote for Satan if they thought it would rid the nation of MAGA madness. After all, Bernie Sanders has endorsed this creep, who is, in addition to all I mentioned above, a Neo-communist like Bernie. As Times columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote last Fall,
“Andy O’Brien, a former Democratic state legislator and newspaper editor, told me that outsiders didn’t fully understand how radicalizing the second Trump presidency has been for ordinary Democrats. Even senior citizens, he said, were becoming “fire-breathing leftists. They’re just pissed off.” These voters understood that Platner had made mistakes, but they saw him as a fighter. “Five years ago, he would have been dead in the water, I think,” said O’Brien, who now works with the labor movement. “But this is such an unprecedented time. I think a lot of people really believe that we need somebody who can effectively fight against fascism.”
Yikes.
Ethics Alarms 
I just need to know if Platner has a different shirt in his wardrobe or if he’s running entirely on the same Photoshoot his campaign managers scheduled for him a few years ago?
The hope would have to be that some of Maine’s moderate democrats who were backing Mills either switch or don’t vote when the general arrives and Platner’s 2-1 advantage over mills doesn’t translate into that kind of lopside vs Collins.
Bringing new gravitas to the term “Mainiac.”
Maybe the fallback plan is: Have him take the seat, he’ll do a bunch of stupid stuff, he’ll be forced to resign, and the governor will be able to appoint a standard issue hack. Susan Collins caucused, as they say, with the Dems anyway, didn’t she?
If you look at the history of Germany leading up to WW-2, they just “needed somebody who could effectively fight against the Communists”. Lathechuck
It has been ten years since I lived in Maine, and I don’t keep up with it the way that I used to, primarily because nearly all of its print and online media outlets are owned by the same decidedly-left-of-center NFP. I refuse to give them so much as a dime of support by subscribing. That ownership includes a sizeable percentage of the state’s weeklies. Maine Public, the state’s PBS/NPR outlets, is as predictably left-of-center as those in the rest of the nation. The First CD has been reliably blue for a long time, and the lobbying orgs and consultancies working the legislature are D controlled (when Maine Republicans get termed out or defeated in elections, they tend to go back to work. When it happens to Ds, they tend to find dishonest work in Augusta.
The fact is that the state APPEARS a lot more liberal than it actually is, because the Dems control the power centers. But there’s still a strong Republican/libertarian streak among the voting base. Susan Collins is far too centrist for the state’s firebreathers on the right, but she’s running unopposed. And Collins has successfully navigated races in the past, pulling enough D votes to successfully keep her seat. My prediction is that she’ll do the same again.
That Platner has drawn so much interest and fanboy crushes from outside of the state will, I predict, be a mixed blessing. Yes, he’ll pull in boatloads of out-of-state cash. To spend where? On ads in newspapers nobody reads, or TV stations nobody watches?
Mainers tend not to like meddling from outside – tourist season is bad enough, and there’s plenty of resentment towards wealthy people “from away” who bought choice properties in Maine during the pandemic and sent housing costs soaring. Maine has similar fraud problems to those in Minnesota, albeit on a smaller scale that reflects the smaller population. But it’s from the same bolt of cloth and that ties back directly to a D-controlled Blaine House and legislature – goosed along by all the aforementioned lobbying groups.
The state’s conservatives are already well aware of what Platner is. My gut tells me that enough middle-of-road independents and blue-dog oriented Democrats – those still exist in Maine – will recognize what Platner actually represents, couple that with what’s happened in the state since Mills became governor, and return Collins to office by a comfortable margin.