What Other Skeletons Are Lurking in Graham Platner’s Closet?
Sexting revelations are the latest in a long line of troublesome details about the Senate candidate’s past.

Donald Trump shattered long-held political norms when Republicans elected him twice despite scandals that would have sunk most candidates. Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner is testing whether Democrats are willing to play by the same rules.Why it matters: The answer will show whether voters' tolerance for scandal — long thought to be a Trump-only phenomenon — is hardening into a broader feature of American politics.Driving the news: Platner suffered the latest in a string of setbacks when the Wall Street Journal and New York Times reported he exchanged sexually explicit texts with at least a half-dozen women while married.His wife discovered the messages and reported them to the campaign during its vetting process.Platner's camp dug in after the texting story broke. In a video released Saturday, Platner's wife, Amy Gertner, called it "really shameful" that outlets would focus on it instead of covering the issues Platner is running on.Strategist Morris Katz — also a close adviser to NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani — dismissed the reporting as a privacy violation by "opportunistic operatives."Zoom in: Platner has been dogged by one controversy after another — from old Reddit posts downplaying rape and insulting Black people to a tattoo of a Nazi symbol he had inked on his chest in 2007 and only covered up last year after becoming a candidate.The oyster farmer and military veteran apologized for his writings, calling them crude and indefensible, and said he hadn't known the tattoo was a widely recognized Nazi symbol.But his campaign has only been gathering steam. His Democratic primary opponent, Maine Gov. Janet Mills, dropped out in late April after polls showed her losing badly. A late May survey by the University of New Hampshire had Platner up 9 points against Republican Sen. Susan Collins in a general election matchup.Already the favorite of progressives, Platner has seen much of the Democratic establishment fall in line, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who was previously all-in for Mills.Friction point: Some Democrats say the party shouldn't adopt the GOP's tolerance for scandal."I find that tattoo and his commentary about it to be personally disqualifying," Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) said on CNN last week. "It would be a mistake for the Democratic Party to think that Graham Platner's brand … is what wins us durable majorities throughout this country."Asked about the sexting reporting on Sunday, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) told ABC News, "Yeah, I have concerns. That guy has questions to answer and that's what campaigns are for."For many others, including progressives, winning can trump moral reservations when control of the Senate is at stake.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's former chief of staff, congressional candidate Saikat Chakrabarti, accused Auchincloss of "essentially endorsing Susan Collins. … Absolutely no excuse for a Democrat in the House to back a Republican for Senate in a crucial swing seat.""[M]aybe Maine Democrats have absorbed the same lesson Republicans adopted in 2016: Once voters stop treating scandal as disqualifying, policing your own side for off-the-field behavior starts to look like unilateral disarmament," center-right columnist Matt Lewis wrote last week.Reality check: Trump and Platner's conduct is different in type and scale. The stakes of a Senate race are not the same as a presidential election. One has expressed contrition, while the other prides himself on refusing to apologize.The bottom line: Maine is a must-win seat for Democrats. The race will come down to whether enough Democrats and independents are willing to hold their noses for Platner like skeptical Republicans did for Trump.
Sexting revelations are the latest in a long line of troublesome details about the Senate candidate’s past.
There’s virtually nothing a left-wing candidate could say or do that would elicit condemnation from Democrats if doing so threatened their power.
Retirements among Senate Democrats are paving the way for younger and fresher successors who are more vocal about abolishing the filibuster. Efforts to create policy carveouts for the 60-vote threshold under Democratic majorities fell short thanks to centrist holdouts. But Senate hopefuls in several states have a stronger desire to repeal the filibuster in its […]
Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner often touts his role as harbormaster of Sullivan, Maine, as proof of his "working class" bona fides, saying on his campaign website that he "serves the town of Sullivan as Harbormaster" and claiming during a February podcast interview that he's "been the harbormaster for the last two years." He actually held the role for roughly 18 months before quitting to launch his Senate campaign—and it was largely a "clerical" one, according to local records and people familiar with the position. The post Graham Platner Says He 'Serves' as His Maine Town's Harbormaster. He Held the Largely 'Clerical' Role for 18 Months Before Quitting To Campaign. appeared first on .
James Talarico got the opponent he – and the Democratic party – wanted, but flipping Texas blue means winning blue-collar voters, not blue-blooded donorsTexas could become the hottest battleground state in the country, if the results of both Republican and Democratic primaries are anything to go by.Democrat James Talarico, a progressive Presbyterian seminarian, will face off against Trump’s favored candidate, the scandal-plagued attorney general, Ken Paxton. The matchup has liberals salivating. Paxton, dogged by corruption charges, impeachment hearings and an affair that left his marriage in tatters, is considered by some in his own party as “the worst possible top-of-the-ticket” candidate. Meanwhile, Talarico, a fresh-faced, clean-cut millennial, who quotes scripture to justify his progressive beliefs, seems like the perfect foil, at least according to Democratic party leaders. Continue reading...
Senate Democrats are launching a coordinated effort to kill the Trump administration's $1.7+ billion "anti-weaponization fund."
California voters can register to vote as “No Party Preference.” But in the 2026 race for governor, Democrats seem to have registered as “No Candidate Preference.” Outgoing Governor Gavin Newsom did not cultivate a successor. And for months, there was no favorite among the many Democrats vying to replace him. Even now, it’s not clear...