If the Age of Trump has taught us anything, it is that any scandal is survivable as long as your devoted followers need it to be.
It’s bad form to repeat yourself, but as a man whose sensibilities are attuned to destructive political folly, I’m willing to make an emergency exception. (Also, I do not feel like writing about Trump’s silly ballroom. He can erect a Bass Pro Shop pyramid to replace the East Wing for all I care.) So let’s discuss Graham Platner for a second day running, for we are now on high alert in the state of Maine.
As readers hopefully already know, Graham Platner is the left’s Great Populist Hope in the upcoming Maine 2026 Senate race against incumbent Republican Susan Collins, an oysterman and former Marine bristling with a performative masculinity of the sort notably missing from Democratic candidacies in the recent past.
He also has a thing for Nazi tattoos as well! The opposition file on Platner has begun to emerge ever since Democratic Governor Janet Mills got into the race for the party’s Senate nomination. (On the conspiratorial progressive left, speculation currently runs rampant that the aged Mills was in fact cajoled by national Democratic figures to enter the race after the party did their own research on Platner.)
The initial revelations — for example, of Platner professing on Reddit to be a Communist, or casually labeling things and people as “gay” — seemed like weak tea to me, and even had the potential to elevate him amongst a primary electorate hungry for progressive working-class authenticity. (Think of it this way: South Park frequently describes American politics and culture as “lame” or “gay” — and in post-Trump 2025 not even the most indignantly activist of progressives is about to abandon Platner for falling on the right side of that invisible cultural dividing line.)
But not the Nazi death’s head tattooed across his right breast. Folks, there’s really just no great way to spin a totenkopf. Platner has apologized fulsomely (“I was young, drunk, and in Croatia” is a plea for the ages) and even got emergency hack-work done on himself to cover up a tat which — it must be pointed out to those who buy his pleas of ignorance — is a universally known symbol of the Nazi right in postwar Croatia, and also featured prominently on the collar of Amon Goeth in Schindler’s List.
In other words, Graham Platner’s flesh has now become a grimly mottled battlefield, and I resent having his doughy chicken-nippled chest shoved in my face all week long on social media. I am calling for a total and complete shutdown to all half-clothed political candidates until we can figure out what the heck is going on here.
You know who might not be, however? Maine Democrats! I mentioned yesterday that a Platner victory wouldn’t be the strangest thing I’ve ever seen, but I was certainly wrong when I casually declared Mills to be the presumptive favorite. The University of New Hampshire is out today with a new poll of the Democratic primary race, and upstart Platner isn’t just leading the incumbent governor, he’s blowing her doors off like a nor’easter:
The 2026 U.S. Senate race in Maine is one of the most closely watched in the country, and Maine Governor Janet Mills recently announced she will be running for the seat. However, among those who plan to vote in the 2026 state Democratic primary (N=506), 58% say they will vote for oyster farmer and political newcomer Graham Platner, 24% will vote for Mills, less than 2% would vote for any other candidate, and 14% are undecided. . . . Platner enjoys the support of majorities of self-described socialists, progressives, and moderates [emphasis added], while a plurality of liberals support Mills. Platner also holds a wide lead among those aged 18 to 49 while Platner and Mills are effectively tied among those aged 65 and older. In April, 78% of Democrats said they wanted Mills to run for Senate but 67% of Independents did not want her to run.
That is a devastating number. Some important caveats: First, this poll was conducted almost exclusively before any of the revelations about Platner began to drop in the media; one imagines that Platner’s commanding lead might now shrink. Second, polling in Maine is notoriously unreliable (as evidence I cite to, well, the Maine senate race in 2020, where Collins trailed Sarah Gideon until Election Day, when she won 51-42.) And eight months remain until the June primary.
But this is why Platner’s progressive supporters — Bernie Sanders, the Pod Save America bros, David Hogg, etc. — have not only not abandoned him but are prepared to double down on their commitment. Look at Platner’s majority support in the UNH poll among both socialists and moderates in the Democratic Party for explanation why: Even with the understanding that a self-described moderate Democrat in Maine is probably further to the left of the national average than that label might suggest, it is Platner’s strength across opposing wings of the party that marks him out from Mills and excites national Democrats.
So upon reconsideration, Nazigate may not be the last we have seen of Graham Platner. If he was already this well-positioned to win the Maine primary then his lead won’t disappear overnight unless he simply flunks as a retail candidate. (Do not rule this out.) And, as I just said, there are eight months yet to go.
Who’s to say that Platner won’t shrug off this oppo dump and then go on to knock off Janet Mills, an old and tired establishmentarian? If the Age of Trump has taught us anything, it is that any scandal is survivable as long as your devoted followers need it to be. And this poll reveals Mills’s weaknesses as a candidate: Independents are tired of her (and Maine is a famously independent minded state), only partisan Democrats care much for her. Mills reminds me of every other candidate who ever lost to Susan Collins — an “experienced” Democrat with a marked charisma deficit.
No wonder Platner might feel like a breath of fresh air for Democratic voters next to a overfamiliar 77-year-old face. (Ask Andrew Cuomo how well the “age and experience” argument is working in New York right now.) I can see the logic of Platner’s supporters as well: If this is a genuine moment of populist frustration on the Democratic left, then they would be fools to abandon a candidate who embodies their values perfectly. They care less about the fact that Platner may have once been a Nazi because they are convinced he is now a Communist.