To me, the biggest indictment of the Democrats here is that the only serious alternative to Platner is 78 years old with high name recognition and relatively low popularity in the state. Like Matt Iglesias mentions in his post, it shows a massive failure in candidate recruitment. I get that Maine is a smaller state than Georgia, but if the Democrats had an alternative candidate in Maine even close to Warnock or Ossoff's level of political skill, that person would be a no brainer.
Also: Democrats came up with ‘establishment candidates’ year after year and often (not always of course) bled for it. I’m totally in favour of Mark Carney-technocrat types but it was only a matter of time until more populist candidates won.
Yeah, if you don't like Platner then the biggest failure is being able to put up a good opponent for him in the primary, and also by the Mills campaign for not being able to exploit his flaws until it was too late.
First "sexting" is not a real clear description of Platner's behavior or issue. But I think G McDonald was simply wrong to dump crap on Platner . I don't know the details but I understand that Platner's wife told McDonald about some of the early marriage issues with Platner "in confidence". Some people love betraying friends. Vengeful, angry behavior. It is also not clear why McDonald left Platner's campaign staff last October. Another unknown. It's beyond me to judge since I don't understand what are the basic facts and motivations of people.
Staffers are neither priests nor therapists and should not be expected to circle the wagons to protect candidates. It is valid to hold prospective US Senate candidates to a relatively high standard of personal content. The standard doesn't have to be "completely above reproach," and if this were the first issue raised, maybe it goes away after a 24 hour Twitter news cycle. It isn't in this case though. It's annoying that Platner spun his other scandals off as youthful indiscretions from a decade+ ago, only for us to discover a new issue from the past 2-3 years.
I am not in Maine, so it ultimately doesn't matter to me, and I likely would vote for him over Collins even if I did live in Maine, but it speaks to a problem in the party that better candidates weren't recruited for this critical race. Party leaders throwing so much initial support behind Mills implies that they have learned nothing from the 2024 debacle.
I agree with a lot of what you said but really disagree with your first point: you're saying that if someone you hired to help asks you to share anything that might damage your campaign in the future you should expect to worry about *them* using whatever you say to damage your campaign themselves later? No way; it's a betrayal and unprofessional, and I hope (if this description of events is true) that that lady doesn't have a future in politics. This would be like if you hired a PR firm and then later that same firm released your private emails to attack your reputation. Why would anyone work with that firm ever again?
Regardless of who the traitors/meanies are here, there are at least six women Platner corresponded with; these messages (however you want to characterize them) likely would have surfaced before the general election anyway, so McDonald probably did the campaign a favor by getting the issue out early.
Again, my point was I don't know what "sexting" is and I don't condone or condemn people exchanging sexually explicit emails. Behavior is different. We are not in the Victorian age and men and women exchange pictures etc. I still see McDonald's behavior as apparently vengeful, perhaps stemming for reasons that she left the Platner campaign (I dunno). My deeper point is when a person shares something personal and private with a "friend", they don't expect a blast unless the issue is major. Sending pictures is common with many teenagers and adults. So what??
1. I think it's a little disingenuous framing to say that Gertner has been supportive of her husband and then *also* just so happens to have been paid $30k by the campaign. She's been paid by the campaign because, like her husband, it is currently her full-time job. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but it seems like you're implying she's being paid *to be supportive* of her husband, which I think is kinda gross.
2. You're leaving out a *very* important detail that Gertner told McDonald the story about the texts in confidence and she betrayed that confidence long after leaving the campaign (which she did I think back in October). Katz's anger is rightfully based on that betrayal of trust. You could make the argument that McDonald simply didn't want that story unreported before the primary, but that doesn't square with someone who has known this since September 2025 or earlier and has been actively campaigning against Graham since. It reads like someone who has an axe to grind and withheld what they thought was a pivotal story until it could materially harm the campaign.
And on the subject of it being voter's business, this is admittedly my opinion, but Amy has forgiven Graham for all of this and did some time ago. Particularly with marital stuff, I think that if the offendee has forgiven the offender, notwithstanding something like abuse or assault (i.e. actual crimes), it is a private matter and should be treated as such.
Agreed, being paid $30k is a complete non-issue if working on the campaign has been her primary job for months. It's weird that Nate called it out like that as if it were a black mark.
> “Part of Platner’s appeal, I think, is that he doesn’t come across as a partisan in a state that’s famously nonpartisan.”
Exactly right. What confounds me about the discourse around Platner’s candidacy is that it’s being conducted through a totally partisan lens. Mainstream GOP types think Collins has a shot because Platner is too progressive. Establishment Dems worry Collins has a shot because of the Nazi stuff and adultery.
Has no one in New York or Washington considered that Maine voters might like a weird mix of economic populism and retrograde cultural politics? Have they ever been to rural New England?
The answer is no, they think that Maine is just Rural New York but Bluer.
They also don't understand why a lot of Libertarians who are Leaning towards him because of the political climate, and why said folks are confused as to why this is a scandal with a Ex-Marine.
To head off people asking 'what do you mean':
I work in security and am surrounded by Ex-Marines.
Before that, I worked law enforcement and had to deprogram Jarheads by the dozen for boring civilian tasks.
I have literally thought of two dozen ex-marines *off the top of my head* who had the same problems that Platner had that I known about *but worse*, and others I suspect, but were perfectly solid for the job at hand. Regrettable Tattoos are a staple of marines, as is jokes about Marrying strippers and forgetting to tell the other girls for a while.
There is a line of argument among Bluesky types, blaming people who pushed a positive image of Platner (like the Pod Save America guys) for him winning the primary, but I think they get the causal relationship backwards: it's because Platner showed a consistent strength with VOTERS that people like the PSA hosts decided to just get on board and try to help him win. He might not win anyway, but it's not necessarily their "fault" that this happened. It's that no other candidates on the left showed enough strength to beat him.
(I am not a Maine voter.) It would be one thing if Platner were running against, like, Ken Paxton or someone else comparably "Trumpy" and personally reprehensible.
But I'm genuinely shocked at how the Left's thought-leaders are rallying around the Nazi tattoo guy to chuck *Susan Collins* out of the Senate.
Susan Collis, who's personally mild-mannered and who helped kibosh the attempts to repeal the ACA in 2017.
Collins confirmed Kavanaugh, let alone the many other ways she's enabled Trump. She's held some lines on appropriations, but on the whole, she's done more to support the regime.
Sure: and it's why we vote partisan support, however "independent" they pretend to be. It's the same deal with Ketterman: most of his votes are Dem, however maverick his posture. If he turns Republican, he'll probably do the same --- but we'll take it, we'll take it.
Essentially it gets to fighting fire with fire. Still: The Democratic Party has a looooooooooong way to go to become as cynical and deprived as the Republican Party, no matter of many “scandals” a Maine senate candidate acquires…
This guy is a complete disaster, and that was before the latest revelations. It's absolutely puzzling why Maine Democrats flocked to this clown over their actually competent sitting Governor. Susan Collins might be a Republican, but she's not very MAGA and she has already beaten higher quality Democrat candidates in the Trump era. I'd make her a small favorite in this race, with room to grow. It seems that White men basically have no floor, in either party. The times, they haven't changed all that much!
I don't think it's puzzling: 1. Mills is older than God, and elderly pols are out of fashion right now. 2. Platner has charisma. Charisma is a Big Deal. (Trump has it. See what I mean?)
I hope Collins wins, but this guy Platner's sex scandal doesn't have indignant, weeping women attached (so far), and Paxton's Texas sex scandal does --- yet Paxton is in like Flynn, I'd say. The tattoo thing was meaningless --- who knew it was a Nazi symbol, if it was? He got it while serving in the Marines, talk about detoxifying something. I studied WWII for six years and never heard of this "Totenkopf" nonsense. It's the usual weaponization of anything the opposition can possibly think of --- that doesn't mean it makes sense or is any kind of problem.
I like Nate's analysis, especially that Republicans are wildly underrated in polls in Maine (even more than everywhere else). I expect Republicans to continue to be underrated in polls because they always are, and I expect Senator Collins to hold her seat because she always does. I also liked Nate's point that politicians that stay conspicuously independent of their party do well in elections, and again, that means Senator Collins is likely to keep her job.
It's not accurate that Republicans are always underrated in polls. Nate proved this to be a myth several times over. Trump himself has been underrated in polling, though even that gets overblown by media people who don't know how to look at data.
That said, Collins has outperformed her polling expectations in a couple of election cycles, (though that could be a symptom of Maine's not being polled as well as more populous states), and probably figures to be safe in this one as well, regardless of what the polling says.
Mills is also not "older than God" she's in her 70s. My comments about Plattner didn't reference his sexting scandal; I think he was a weak candidate before this ever was revealed. Also, most people who have ever looked into WWII Nazi stuff beyond a high school level of competence know what his tattoo was - this wasn't deep Oppo stuff. Now, does that make him a Nazi/Nazi sympathizer? Probably not; IMO it just reinforces who he is - an ignorant jarhead hick in over his head who before this wasn't a fit or serious candidate for the Senate, and obviously isn't now. He probably got it because he thought it "looked cool." Oyster farmers should probably just stay oyster farmers.
Governor Mills is 78! That's Biden/Trump/Pelosi territory; she'd be 85 at the end of her term. Since Biden's collapse, this is verboten. Or at least out of fashion.
The tattoo is nonsense. I can't see that slowing Platner down at all. It only shows the depths to which we've sunk in this country at AI-powered oppo research that is going to turn up all sorts of stuff on every candidate. Like Talarico and his six genders: that was YEARS ago at the height of the tranny fad, and shouldn't count: but wow, will it ever.
I'm impressed that the rather mild sex scandal is all they can find on him. So far. No threats, no violence. His going after young women on the Internet isn't good ---- that's the worst of it. He's not getting divorced, so far; no court cases against him.
Unless they can find something really juicy, and we all know these researchers are desperately trying to, I'd say he could be a Senator-to-be.
Yes, in elections without Trump on the ballot in recent years the polling has been pretty accurate for the most part! Even in the last election Trump overperformed but not by a crazy amount; Nate's model had it as a virtual tossup and Trump winning by a point or two is well in line with that.
The Totenkopf is not a Nazi tattoo, it was used in the Prussian and British military for centuries before the SS stuck it on their caps. It looks a lot like the Punisher tattoo that seems practically mandatory for special forces macho types.
And as I was saying, IMO the most likely reason why he got it was because he probably just thought it looked cool. Not a great explanation either, but it’s certainly better than being aligned with SS ideals.
I'm not a Maine voter. But this is between consenting adults with no coercive power differential. If it was sexual assault, or screwing one of his interns or employees, that's concerning. Sexting some rando on a dating app? Yawn, not my business, don't care
The pearl clutching and false equivalency whenever some Democrat does anything remotely tawdry (Swalwell obviously excepted), is maddening. Who knows, if not for that tendency among Democratic establishment types, we might have had President Al Franken, and what a different world it would be.
I am a Maine resident and I don’t think this will prevent Mr. Platner’s selection as the Democratic Party’s candidate for Senate nor his eventual election. The context of this election – declining real wages under the current administration, a level of the populace that has no health insurance that equals the level pre-ACA, a BUB (Big Ugly Bill) that cut SNAP benefits and Medicaid while lowering taxes at the top end, the buy-outs of offshore wind producers while relaxing environmental regulations and encouraging coal-fired electricity generation, the unprecedented level of corruption and self-dealing in the executive branch, and its incompetence in foreign policy and health policy – calls for someone who will move the needle in the other direction and not simply a moderate, competent public servant. To borrow from FDR, these are no ordinary times.
As far as capable candidates, we have a plethora running in the Democratic primary for governor. Tied for the lead in the most recent UNH poll are Troy Jackson, the very capable former majority leader in the state of Maine Senate who has been endorsed by Bernie Sanders, and Nirav Shah, who served as Maine’s CDC director during the peak of COVID and shepherded Maine through one of the lowest death rates in the nation despite its having the oldest population in the nation (measured by median age). Running third in that primary race is our Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who recently earned a dismissal in the lawsuit the US DOJ brought against Maine for her refusal to hand over the state’s voter records. Her initial response to the request was a smiling “Go jump in the Gulf of Maine.” It is a certainty that our ranked choice voting algorithm will be required to settle that primary.
Yes, we do things differently here, including ranked choice voting for all but the governor’s race (our Supreme Court has ruled RCV violates our state constitution as a means of settling that race), which was enacted by statewide referendum. If we had RCV nationwide, Donald Trump would never have sniffed the White House, let alone destroy it and gold leaf it beyond the bounds of taste.
One last pleasure. There is nothing more smile-inducing than having an out-of-state billionaire conservative (Richard Uihlein) come to our small pond and dump $800,000 into a petition drive for a Maine state referendum that would ban transgender participation in athletics and then have a court, on Secretary of State Bellows’ initiative, find that the petition failed due to a variety of violations of our state’s petition law, including forged signatures. As Ms. Bellows noted after the court's finding "We take the integrity of the petition process just as seriously as we take the security of the voting process.”
Thanks for your patience with this long post and, more importantly, thanks for the excellent commentary.
Ron Brownstein pointed out on Hacks on Tap that Collins’ wins have been driven by overperformance with older white women. If Plattner needs to win them over, infidelity (attempted or actual) and attacking women will not help. Between Yglesias’s point that about Plattner being overly factional and the ham-handed response to this current scandal, it does seem like he could blow the race.
Hi Josh, Thanks for the comment. I was not in Maine when she was first elected, and I probably really should research this and don't have the time, but my memory and impression, because I know some folks who touted her in those years, was that she initially got a lot of party crossover votes because she was a woman who appeared to be pro-choice -- again, I may be wrong about that, and sorry if I am. Anyway, if I'm not wrong about that, I'm thinking some of those older white women could feel pretty badly betrayed by her votes for Kavanaugh and Gorsuch. I have thoughts on that, but wouldn't add them without doing the research to back up a memory I don't trust. Anyway, in my mind a vote for Susan Collins now is a vote for Donald Trump, and I don't think she should get any crossover votes.
Your attacking women comment I assume refers to Graham Platner's remarks that seem intended to refer to date rape. I agree, those won't help, and I don't endorse that view or defend the remarks -- you wouldn't say someone who gets beaten up and robbed when they are inebriated should know better than to be inebriated. But your reference to attacking made me initially think of violence, which made me think of Bobby Knight's remark that if a women is getting raped, she should just enjoy it. What kind of puerile understanding confuses rape, fundamentally about violence and control, with sex, fundamentally about love? Yet, I can recall mentioning that to a friend and hearing them say Bobby Knight can walk into any home in Indiana and be welcomed. I hope we've come a long way since those days, but people have said far worse and still get revered.
Graham Platner certainly could blow the race, and to be a bit more charitable, there will be all sorts of money coming into the state on her side that could swing the race. Also, if you want accurate prognostication, you should not be paying any attention to me, but rather Nate Silver, Nate Cohn, whoever works for the Economist, maybe the Cook Report, somebody who forecasts with some skill and intelligence.
Correction. The ruling on the petition was issued by Ms. Bellows and not a court, and is appealable to a court. Unlike the US DOJ, she still earns the presumption of regularity in court. I'd anticipate an appeal that loses, she's a very straight shooter.
The GOP candidate in the 2024 race to be Governor of North Carolina was Mark Robinson, a sleazy he'er-do-well whose extremely Platner-esque activity on message boards (calling himself a Nazi and lurid sex discourse, et al.) led Republicans to buck him--he lost the race in NC by 15 points.
A year later it came out that Jay Jones, Dem candidate for Virginia's AG (and who even care's who the AG is?) (1) served community service hours he'd been sentenced to by a judge by working on his own PAC and (2) had text messages fantasizing about his political opponents suffering gun violence. It was a vile mixture of personal failings that *also had public/political* valence. Virginia made him AG anyway.
Look friend in a world Donald Trump is the president and the entire GOP (and media) is rallying behind Ken Paxton, I don’t really care to engage with randos online over this topic
You realize that that’s a different point than whining about a “double standard”, right?
You can criticize the GOP for tons. But if your point was that Democrats are fighting the headwinds of an unfair “double standard”—and, ahem, that was your point—you’re just high on your own partisan supply. It’s not real—case in point, the different fates of Robinson and Jones.
Note what people really, REALLY don't like: they don't like violence and victimization. The examples above that you gave are violent and victimizing. The Maine stuff with Platner is not. So I think he'll do all right.
I’m not the biggest fan of Platner but comparing sexting to Mark Robinson is misleading. Did you actually ever read the comments he left? It was nasty. Like the stuff that they wrote about and quoted in the mainstream news wasn’t nearly the worst of it. I honestly don’t think they could get away with publishing some of the other stuff he wrote. It wasn’t just gross, it was downright bizarre.
I’ll stand corrected if Platner’s sexts get published and are just as bad, but assuming they’re “replacement level” sexting, then I can’t imagine it being anywhere near as crass.
Well I didn’t did I? So what’s your point. I don’t want to live in a world where everyone goes “yeah but your guy did x” “yeah but your guy did y” I want to live in a world where we hold everyone to the same objective standard. But ive seen wall to wall coverage of “planters problematic” and 90% of the coverage about the Texas race is “is talarico too gay for Texas?”
Talarico isn't homosexual, is he? I have only heard of the problems with his affirming his support for tranny stuff ---- several years ago when it was fashionable. He did this partly by munging it in with Presbyterian doctrine, or tried to, and I doubt he is still supporting that pernicious nonsense, but everything, that's EVERYthing gets weaponized these days.
I haven't heard the race is being discussed in such terms as gay and vegetarian, but you may well know better. The tranny stuff is his worst problem, surely.
Probably not a good sign for Talarico. I've been assuming Paxton will win hands down, unless there is a big problem with the war, inflation, prices, etc.
I only know what I see in the social media circles I see (also Fox News) but those are largely political junkie circled so who knows what folks on the ground in Texas are saying. Hopefully something of any substance. I think it will be a close race, talarico has an uphill battle. If it were today I’d put money on Paxton. But we have what 5 more months of inflation, of a war without any point or exit, and a president very clearly obviously entering dementia. Not to mention the grocery stock from the Iran war that will hit in the fall. So we will see
Well I don't have a problem with a politician having sex with a prostitute while their wife is nursing a newborn at home IF she is okay with it--it is none of my business. It's the writing off the cost of the hush money to keep the prostitute silent as a business expense that irks me and happens to be illegal. When you got Platner breaking a law in regards to his personal life, I'll start paying attention. But to the original point, Democrats are held to a higher standard. Anybody remember the saga about whether Clinton inhaled, or what color suit Obama was wearing?
"There’s no particular reason for Collins to have leaned into her opposition research file while the Democratic primary is technically still unresolved."
I suspect this is Plattner's team strategically releasing this info now, so that if Collins brings it up they can say it is old news that the voters already considered before voting for him in the primary.
Something important to note, is people in Maine really do want to vote explicitly for other Mainers. It matters more that you seem like another one from the state rather than a political entity from elsewhere.
Gideon was dominating polls, but she was not a Mainer. That ultimately may have been the main thing that hurt her that polls couldn't capture.
I think that's part of it. After the election, people remarked that Gideon wore Patagonia (ironically, founded by a Mainer, Yvon Chouinard, who has since transferred it to an environmental group) whereas Collins wore LL Bean. I think a more important part is that many in Maine view Collins as our ATM at "The Bank of the Federal Government."
But I don't think that will save her this time around -- 8,500 Mainers lost health insurance as a result of BUB (Big Ugly Bill), with another 31,000 in jeopardy of losing health insurance. With all I read about what a moderate she is, as of a last November Center for American Progress report, she had voted with Trump 95% of the time. Sure, she hasn't suggested Trump's scowling face be on Mount Rushmore, but 95% is not very stiff opposition, and I can be pretty certain that most if not all of those 5% dissents were on bills that safely passed without her vote -- they are window dressing and understood to be so.
She will run ads that are personal testimonials from constituents that she has provided service for, but there aren't 8,500 of them.
I wanted to amend this slightly, as I seem to have to be standing in for a state here. Most Mainers are happy to support people who are not originally from Maine. According to Wikipedia, current Senator Angus King was born in Virginia, and Nirav Shah, co-leader in a recent poll of the Democratic party candidate for governor, hails from Wisconsin. Are there Mainers who would be biased towards candidates who were born in Maine? Probably some, but not enough to account for much of a margin, although moving to Maine as a very wealthy person and immediately running for state-wide office probably wouldn't go over all that well. Maybe Sara Gideon was slightly disadvantaged insofar as her role, Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, did not get her in front of television cameras as much as Angus King (previously a popular local PBS personality) or Nirav Shah (remarkably multi-talented and down-to-earth CDC director who gave weekly briefings that were appointment TV in Maine during the COVID years).
I’d also like to add that as Mr. Silver’s post mentions, Mainers are happy to support Republicans. I think that’s in part because people from both political parties have some reverence for Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith for being one of the first to publicly oppose Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s. Same goes for Republican (then Representative, later Senator) Bill Cohen, who voted to impeach Nixon. Susan Collins did not vote to impeach Trump, saying “I think he’s learned his lesson,” which was apparently to surround himself with sycophants. Her tendency to vote in opposition mostly when the opposition loses increasingly comes across as a duplicitous, calculated sham rather than moderation. When ICE came to Maine, rather than remark on their often unconstitutional, brutal, and as a local police chief said, “unprofessional” tactics, she implied that she pulled strings to get them to leave. Well, that’s not good enough for me, and I think a majority of Mainers will say it isn’t good enough for them either, even as she plays the card of getting federal dollars into the state.
"While I personally don’t care much about a candidate’s personal conduct, so long as it doesn’t impact his performance in office."
The problem with this reasoning is that a person with poor personal conduct is susceptible to influence and pressure from those who know their secrets. So, it ends up impacting their performance in office, like it or not.
Can’t articulate exactly why this doesn’t concern me for Platner’s chances, but it doesn’t. Maybe it’s because Susan Collins is 72 years old and has been in office for many years - like Mills, she has some Biden-gunk on her. And I think the electorate is just fed up with older politicians who don’t know when it’s time to quit, no matter which party they’re from. Unless something REALLY egregious emerges about Platner (like if he actually unapologetically CHEATS on his wife between now and Election Day), I still predict a comfortable win for him in November.
Susan Collins is ONLY 72 --- that's just getting started in national politics these days. She will be 80 when she finishes her six-year term, a good time to stop. She's a respectable Maine woman who has been winning for a long time --- I think Maine will decide to let this Platner guy grow up a little longer. He could try again later.
I don’t live in ME, and I don’t hate Collins, but I think she will suffer from being too establishment-y. Dems like me who are furious about Trump/lickspittle Rs (and I’m not saying she’s one of them) AS WELL AS the Dem establishment for being complete morons, with no end in sight, will be walking into voting booths with both middle fingers straight up this fall, and I think Platner is well-positioned to seize on that double-headed rage. But what do I know - seems like you’re a Maine voter, and you might be right. Assuming free and fair elections, we’ll know in a few short months!
No, Maryland, not Maine voter, but I am interested in your point that Democrats are furious at BOTH parties. And so may do unpredicted things, especially if the acts are anti-establishmentarian. I'm on the pre-publish buy list for Barney Frank's book out posthumously in September -- and as a Republican I wouldn't normally be interested in what Frank has to say! -- but apparently his book is just a jeremiad against his party's crazy far-left swing that lost so many voters.
I think this should be really concerning. Platner sexting on Kik a few years ago isn't where journalists are going to let the story sit. They're going to go digging, everyone hoping to get a by-line on a Swalwell-level scandal. That's why they publicized his Kik username and it's concerning that when they checked his Kik profile apparently still active since they were able to see a profile picture.
Another point is that Congress has recently gone through an upheaval in having a much lower tolerance for sexual misconduct. Of course Mainers are the ones to elect their Senators, but if there's a hint of a difference in power dynamics between Platner and whoever he was flirting with then I think it will cost him a lot of support.
To me, the biggest indictment of the Democrats here is that the only serious alternative to Platner is 78 years old with high name recognition and relatively low popularity in the state. Like Matt Iglesias mentions in his post, it shows a massive failure in candidate recruitment. I get that Maine is a smaller state than Georgia, but if the Democrats had an alternative candidate in Maine even close to Warnock or Ossoff's level of political skill, that person would be a no brainer.
Jared Golden was driven out of the party for not being a doctrinaire leftist. He won a Trump leaning district twice.
Mills is not unpopular in Maine.
She routinely polls as the least popular Democratic governor and reached a low of 43% approval last year. That's awful for a governor.
Also: Democrats came up with ‘establishment candidates’ year after year and often (not always of course) bled for it. I’m totally in favour of Mark Carney-technocrat types but it was only a matter of time until more populist candidates won.
Yeah, if you don't like Platner then the biggest failure is being able to put up a good opponent for him in the primary, and also by the Mills campaign for not being able to exploit his flaws until it was too late.
First "sexting" is not a real clear description of Platner's behavior or issue. But I think G McDonald was simply wrong to dump crap on Platner . I don't know the details but I understand that Platner's wife told McDonald about some of the early marriage issues with Platner "in confidence". Some people love betraying friends. Vengeful, angry behavior. It is also not clear why McDonald left Platner's campaign staff last October. Another unknown. It's beyond me to judge since I don't understand what are the basic facts and motivations of people.
Staffers are neither priests nor therapists and should not be expected to circle the wagons to protect candidates. It is valid to hold prospective US Senate candidates to a relatively high standard of personal content. The standard doesn't have to be "completely above reproach," and if this were the first issue raised, maybe it goes away after a 24 hour Twitter news cycle. It isn't in this case though. It's annoying that Platner spun his other scandals off as youthful indiscretions from a decade+ ago, only for us to discover a new issue from the past 2-3 years.
I am not in Maine, so it ultimately doesn't matter to me, and I likely would vote for him over Collins even if I did live in Maine, but it speaks to a problem in the party that better candidates weren't recruited for this critical race. Party leaders throwing so much initial support behind Mills implies that they have learned nothing from the 2024 debacle.
I agree with a lot of what you said but really disagree with your first point: you're saying that if someone you hired to help asks you to share anything that might damage your campaign in the future you should expect to worry about *them* using whatever you say to damage your campaign themselves later? No way; it's a betrayal and unprofessional, and I hope (if this description of events is true) that that lady doesn't have a future in politics. This would be like if you hired a PR firm and then later that same firm released your private emails to attack your reputation. Why would anyone work with that firm ever again?
The information was provided to the staffer in confidence by platners wife it’s a shitty human thing in general to violate promises of confidence
Regardless of who the traitors/meanies are here, there are at least six women Platner corresponded with; these messages (however you want to characterize them) likely would have surfaced before the general election anyway, so McDonald probably did the campaign a favor by getting the issue out early.
Again, my point was I don't know what "sexting" is and I don't condone or condemn people exchanging sexually explicit emails. Behavior is different. We are not in the Victorian age and men and women exchange pictures etc. I still see McDonald's behavior as apparently vengeful, perhaps stemming for reasons that she left the Platner campaign (I dunno). My deeper point is when a person shares something personal and private with a "friend", they don't expect a blast unless the issue is major. Sending pictures is common with many teenagers and adults. So what??
Two things worth noting here:
1. I think it's a little disingenuous framing to say that Gertner has been supportive of her husband and then *also* just so happens to have been paid $30k by the campaign. She's been paid by the campaign because, like her husband, it is currently her full-time job. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but it seems like you're implying she's being paid *to be supportive* of her husband, which I think is kinda gross.
2. You're leaving out a *very* important detail that Gertner told McDonald the story about the texts in confidence and she betrayed that confidence long after leaving the campaign (which she did I think back in October). Katz's anger is rightfully based on that betrayal of trust. You could make the argument that McDonald simply didn't want that story unreported before the primary, but that doesn't square with someone who has known this since September 2025 or earlier and has been actively campaigning against Graham since. It reads like someone who has an axe to grind and withheld what they thought was a pivotal story until it could materially harm the campaign.
And on the subject of it being voter's business, this is admittedly my opinion, but Amy has forgiven Graham for all of this and did some time ago. Particularly with marital stuff, I think that if the offendee has forgiven the offender, notwithstanding something like abuse or assault (i.e. actual crimes), it is a private matter and should be treated as such.
Yeah, the implication that Gertner's primary motivation might have been pecuniary seems far-fetched.
Agreed, being paid $30k is a complete non-issue if working on the campaign has been her primary job for months. It's weird that Nate called it out like that as if it were a black mark.
> “Part of Platner’s appeal, I think, is that he doesn’t come across as a partisan in a state that’s famously nonpartisan.”
Exactly right. What confounds me about the discourse around Platner’s candidacy is that it’s being conducted through a totally partisan lens. Mainstream GOP types think Collins has a shot because Platner is too progressive. Establishment Dems worry Collins has a shot because of the Nazi stuff and adultery.
Has no one in New York or Washington considered that Maine voters might like a weird mix of economic populism and retrograde cultural politics? Have they ever been to rural New England?
The answer is no, they think that Maine is just Rural New York but Bluer.
They also don't understand why a lot of Libertarians who are Leaning towards him because of the political climate, and why said folks are confused as to why this is a scandal with a Ex-Marine.
To head off people asking 'what do you mean':
I work in security and am surrounded by Ex-Marines.
Before that, I worked law enforcement and had to deprogram Jarheads by the dozen for boring civilian tasks.
I have literally thought of two dozen ex-marines *off the top of my head* who had the same problems that Platner had that I known about *but worse*, and others I suspect, but were perfectly solid for the job at hand. Regrettable Tattoos are a staple of marines, as is jokes about Marrying strippers and forgetting to tell the other girls for a while.
In that light, Platner has *Class* for a Marine.
There is a line of argument among Bluesky types, blaming people who pushed a positive image of Platner (like the Pod Save America guys) for him winning the primary, but I think they get the causal relationship backwards: it's because Platner showed a consistent strength with VOTERS that people like the PSA hosts decided to just get on board and try to help him win. He might not win anyway, but it's not necessarily their "fault" that this happened. It's that no other candidates on the left showed enough strength to beat him.
Speaking as a New England transplant, Maine is the Alaska of the Northeast. Freaks and recluses are definitely drawn to that state.
(I am not a Maine voter.) It would be one thing if Platner were running against, like, Ken Paxton or someone else comparably "Trumpy" and personally reprehensible.
But I'm genuinely shocked at how the Left's thought-leaders are rallying around the Nazi tattoo guy to chuck *Susan Collins* out of the Senate.
Susan Collis, who's personally mild-mannered and who helped kibosh the attempts to repeal the ACA in 2017.
Collins confirmed Kavanaugh, let alone the many other ways she's enabled Trump. She's held some lines on appropriations, but on the whole, she's done more to support the regime.
Sure: and it's why we vote partisan support, however "independent" they pretend to be. It's the same deal with Ketterman: most of his votes are Dem, however maverick his posture. If he turns Republican, he'll probably do the same --- but we'll take it, we'll take it.
Essentially it gets to fighting fire with fire. Still: The Democratic Party has a looooooooooong way to go to become as cynical and deprived as the Republican Party, no matter of many “scandals” a Maine senate candidate acquires…
This guy is a complete disaster, and that was before the latest revelations. It's absolutely puzzling why Maine Democrats flocked to this clown over their actually competent sitting Governor. Susan Collins might be a Republican, but she's not very MAGA and she has already beaten higher quality Democrat candidates in the Trump era. I'd make her a small favorite in this race, with room to grow. It seems that White men basically have no floor, in either party. The times, they haven't changed all that much!
I don't think it's puzzling: 1. Mills is older than God, and elderly pols are out of fashion right now. 2. Platner has charisma. Charisma is a Big Deal. (Trump has it. See what I mean?)
I hope Collins wins, but this guy Platner's sex scandal doesn't have indignant, weeping women attached (so far), and Paxton's Texas sex scandal does --- yet Paxton is in like Flynn, I'd say. The tattoo thing was meaningless --- who knew it was a Nazi symbol, if it was? He got it while serving in the Marines, talk about detoxifying something. I studied WWII for six years and never heard of this "Totenkopf" nonsense. It's the usual weaponization of anything the opposition can possibly think of --- that doesn't mean it makes sense or is any kind of problem.
I like Nate's analysis, especially that Republicans are wildly underrated in polls in Maine (even more than everywhere else). I expect Republicans to continue to be underrated in polls because they always are, and I expect Senator Collins to hold her seat because she always does. I also liked Nate's point that politicians that stay conspicuously independent of their party do well in elections, and again, that means Senator Collins is likely to keep her job.
It's not accurate that Republicans are always underrated in polls. Nate proved this to be a myth several times over. Trump himself has been underrated in polling, though even that gets overblown by media people who don't know how to look at data.
That said, Collins has outperformed her polling expectations in a couple of election cycles, (though that could be a symptom of Maine's not being polled as well as more populous states), and probably figures to be safe in this one as well, regardless of what the polling says.
Mills is also not "older than God" she's in her 70s. My comments about Plattner didn't reference his sexting scandal; I think he was a weak candidate before this ever was revealed. Also, most people who have ever looked into WWII Nazi stuff beyond a high school level of competence know what his tattoo was - this wasn't deep Oppo stuff. Now, does that make him a Nazi/Nazi sympathizer? Probably not; IMO it just reinforces who he is - an ignorant jarhead hick in over his head who before this wasn't a fit or serious candidate for the Senate, and obviously isn't now. He probably got it because he thought it "looked cool." Oyster farmers should probably just stay oyster farmers.
Governor Mills is 78! That's Biden/Trump/Pelosi territory; she'd be 85 at the end of her term. Since Biden's collapse, this is verboten. Or at least out of fashion.
The tattoo is nonsense. I can't see that slowing Platner down at all. It only shows the depths to which we've sunk in this country at AI-powered oppo research that is going to turn up all sorts of stuff on every candidate. Like Talarico and his six genders: that was YEARS ago at the height of the tranny fad, and shouldn't count: but wow, will it ever.
I'm impressed that the rather mild sex scandal is all they can find on him. So far. No threats, no violence. His going after young women on the Internet isn't good ---- that's the worst of it. He's not getting divorced, so far; no court cases against him.
Unless they can find something really juicy, and we all know these researchers are desperately trying to, I'd say he could be a Senator-to-be.
Yes, in elections without Trump on the ballot in recent years the polling has been pretty accurate for the most part! Even in the last election Trump overperformed but not by a crazy amount; Nate's model had it as a virtual tossup and Trump winning by a point or two is well in line with that.
The Totenkopf is not a Nazi tattoo, it was used in the Prussian and British military for centuries before the SS stuck it on their caps. It looks a lot like the Punisher tattoo that seems practically mandatory for special forces macho types.
Understood that it didn’t originate with the SS.
And as I was saying, IMO the most likely reason why he got it was because he probably just thought it looked cool. Not a great explanation either, but it’s certainly better than being aligned with SS ideals.
I'm not a Maine voter. But this is between consenting adults with no coercive power differential. If it was sexual assault, or screwing one of his interns or employees, that's concerning. Sexting some rando on a dating app? Yawn, not my business, don't care
The pearl clutching and false equivalency whenever some Democrat does anything remotely tawdry (Swalwell obviously excepted), is maddening. Who knows, if not for that tendency among Democratic establishment types, we might have had President Al Franken, and what a different world it would be.
I am a Maine resident and I don’t think this will prevent Mr. Platner’s selection as the Democratic Party’s candidate for Senate nor his eventual election. The context of this election – declining real wages under the current administration, a level of the populace that has no health insurance that equals the level pre-ACA, a BUB (Big Ugly Bill) that cut SNAP benefits and Medicaid while lowering taxes at the top end, the buy-outs of offshore wind producers while relaxing environmental regulations and encouraging coal-fired electricity generation, the unprecedented level of corruption and self-dealing in the executive branch, and its incompetence in foreign policy and health policy – calls for someone who will move the needle in the other direction and not simply a moderate, competent public servant. To borrow from FDR, these are no ordinary times.
As far as capable candidates, we have a plethora running in the Democratic primary for governor. Tied for the lead in the most recent UNH poll are Troy Jackson, the very capable former majority leader in the state of Maine Senate who has been endorsed by Bernie Sanders, and Nirav Shah, who served as Maine’s CDC director during the peak of COVID and shepherded Maine through one of the lowest death rates in the nation despite its having the oldest population in the nation (measured by median age). Running third in that primary race is our Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who recently earned a dismissal in the lawsuit the US DOJ brought against Maine for her refusal to hand over the state’s voter records. Her initial response to the request was a smiling “Go jump in the Gulf of Maine.” It is a certainty that our ranked choice voting algorithm will be required to settle that primary.
Yes, we do things differently here, including ranked choice voting for all but the governor’s race (our Supreme Court has ruled RCV violates our state constitution as a means of settling that race), which was enacted by statewide referendum. If we had RCV nationwide, Donald Trump would never have sniffed the White House, let alone destroy it and gold leaf it beyond the bounds of taste.
One last pleasure. There is nothing more smile-inducing than having an out-of-state billionaire conservative (Richard Uihlein) come to our small pond and dump $800,000 into a petition drive for a Maine state referendum that would ban transgender participation in athletics and then have a court, on Secretary of State Bellows’ initiative, find that the petition failed due to a variety of violations of our state’s petition law, including forged signatures. As Ms. Bellows noted after the court's finding "We take the integrity of the petition process just as seriously as we take the security of the voting process.”
Thanks for your patience with this long post and, more importantly, thanks for the excellent commentary.
Ron Brownstein pointed out on Hacks on Tap that Collins’ wins have been driven by overperformance with older white women. If Plattner needs to win them over, infidelity (attempted or actual) and attacking women will not help. Between Yglesias’s point that about Plattner being overly factional and the ham-handed response to this current scandal, it does seem like he could blow the race.
Hi Josh, Thanks for the comment. I was not in Maine when she was first elected, and I probably really should research this and don't have the time, but my memory and impression, because I know some folks who touted her in those years, was that she initially got a lot of party crossover votes because she was a woman who appeared to be pro-choice -- again, I may be wrong about that, and sorry if I am. Anyway, if I'm not wrong about that, I'm thinking some of those older white women could feel pretty badly betrayed by her votes for Kavanaugh and Gorsuch. I have thoughts on that, but wouldn't add them without doing the research to back up a memory I don't trust. Anyway, in my mind a vote for Susan Collins now is a vote for Donald Trump, and I don't think she should get any crossover votes.
Your attacking women comment I assume refers to Graham Platner's remarks that seem intended to refer to date rape. I agree, those won't help, and I don't endorse that view or defend the remarks -- you wouldn't say someone who gets beaten up and robbed when they are inebriated should know better than to be inebriated. But your reference to attacking made me initially think of violence, which made me think of Bobby Knight's remark that if a women is getting raped, she should just enjoy it. What kind of puerile understanding confuses rape, fundamentally about violence and control, with sex, fundamentally about love? Yet, I can recall mentioning that to a friend and hearing them say Bobby Knight can walk into any home in Indiana and be welcomed. I hope we've come a long way since those days, but people have said far worse and still get revered.
Graham Platner certainly could blow the race, and to be a bit more charitable, there will be all sorts of money coming into the state on her side that could swing the race. Also, if you want accurate prognostication, you should not be paying any attention to me, but rather Nate Silver, Nate Cohn, whoever works for the Economist, maybe the Cook Report, somebody who forecasts with some skill and intelligence.
Thanks again, and have a great day!
Correction. The ruling on the petition was issued by Ms. Bellows and not a court, and is appealable to a court. Unlike the US DOJ, she still earns the presumption of regularity in court. I'd anticipate an appeal that loses, she's a very straight shooter.
Democrats have to overcome both gerrymandering and the insane double standard for personal conduct it’s wild
What "double standard"?
The GOP candidate in the 2024 race to be Governor of North Carolina was Mark Robinson, a sleazy he'er-do-well whose extremely Platner-esque activity on message boards (calling himself a Nazi and lurid sex discourse, et al.) led Republicans to buck him--he lost the race in NC by 15 points.
A year later it came out that Jay Jones, Dem candidate for Virginia's AG (and who even care's who the AG is?) (1) served community service hours he'd been sentenced to by a judge by working on his own PAC and (2) had text messages fantasizing about his political opponents suffering gun violence. It was a vile mixture of personal failings that *also had public/political* valence. Virginia made him AG anyway.
I flagged that at the time btw:
https://natesilver.substack.com/p/a-1010-night-for-democrats?r=ehflg&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=173989025
Look friend in a world Donald Trump is the president and the entire GOP (and media) is rallying behind Ken Paxton, I don’t really care to engage with randos online over this topic
You realize that that’s a different point than whining about a “double standard”, right?
You can criticize the GOP for tons. But if your point was that Democrats are fighting the headwinds of an unfair “double standard”—and, ahem, that was your point—you’re just high on your own partisan supply. It’s not real—case in point, the different fates of Robinson and Jones.
Sure Jan
Note what people really, REALLY don't like: they don't like violence and victimization. The examples above that you gave are violent and victimizing. The Maine stuff with Platner is not. So I think he'll do all right.
I’m not the biggest fan of Platner but comparing sexting to Mark Robinson is misleading. Did you actually ever read the comments he left? It was nasty. Like the stuff that they wrote about and quoted in the mainstream news wasn’t nearly the worst of it. I honestly don’t think they could get away with publishing some of the other stuff he wrote. It wasn’t just gross, it was downright bizarre.
I’ll stand corrected if Platner’s sexts get published and are just as bad, but assuming they’re “replacement level” sexting, then I can’t imagine it being anywhere near as crass.
If you’re gonna tolerate garbage conduct from your guy, you can’t really complain about the other guy’s conduct IMO.
Well I didn’t did I? So what’s your point. I don’t want to live in a world where everyone goes “yeah but your guy did x” “yeah but your guy did y” I want to live in a world where we hold everyone to the same objective standard. But ive seen wall to wall coverage of “planters problematic” and 90% of the coverage about the Texas race is “is talarico too gay for Texas?”
It’s really unclear what your point is.
Talarico isn't homosexual, is he? I have only heard of the problems with his affirming his support for tranny stuff ---- several years ago when it was fashionable. He did this partly by munging it in with Presbyterian doctrine, or tried to, and I doubt he is still supporting that pernicious nonsense, but everything, that's EVERYthing gets weaponized these days.
AFAIK, he’s neither gay, trans, nor veg. Yet that is wall to wall coverage of that race lol
I haven't heard the race is being discussed in such terms as gay and vegetarian, but you may well know better. The tranny stuff is his worst problem, surely.
Probably not a good sign for Talarico. I've been assuming Paxton will win hands down, unless there is a big problem with the war, inflation, prices, etc.
I only know what I see in the social media circles I see (also Fox News) but those are largely political junkie circled so who knows what folks on the ground in Texas are saying. Hopefully something of any substance. I think it will be a close race, talarico has an uphill battle. If it were today I’d put money on Paxton. But we have what 5 more months of inflation, of a war without any point or exit, and a president very clearly obviously entering dementia. Not to mention the grocery stock from the Iran war that will hit in the fall. So we will see
Well I don't have a problem with a politician having sex with a prostitute while their wife is nursing a newborn at home IF she is okay with it--it is none of my business. It's the writing off the cost of the hush money to keep the prostitute silent as a business expense that irks me and happens to be illegal. When you got Platner breaking a law in regards to his personal life, I'll start paying attention. But to the original point, Democrats are held to a higher standard. Anybody remember the saga about whether Clinton inhaled, or what color suit Obama was wearing?
Nazi Tattoo? I sleep.
Cheating on his wife: Real Shit??
"There’s no particular reason for Collins to have leaned into her opposition research file while the Democratic primary is technically still unresolved."
I suspect this is Plattner's team strategically releasing this info now, so that if Collins brings it up they can say it is old news that the voters already considered before voting for him in the primary.
Something important to note, is people in Maine really do want to vote explicitly for other Mainers. It matters more that you seem like another one from the state rather than a political entity from elsewhere.
Gideon was dominating polls, but she was not a Mainer. That ultimately may have been the main thing that hurt her that polls couldn't capture.
I think that's part of it. After the election, people remarked that Gideon wore Patagonia (ironically, founded by a Mainer, Yvon Chouinard, who has since transferred it to an environmental group) whereas Collins wore LL Bean. I think a more important part is that many in Maine view Collins as our ATM at "The Bank of the Federal Government."
But I don't think that will save her this time around -- 8,500 Mainers lost health insurance as a result of BUB (Big Ugly Bill), with another 31,000 in jeopardy of losing health insurance. With all I read about what a moderate she is, as of a last November Center for American Progress report, she had voted with Trump 95% of the time. Sure, she hasn't suggested Trump's scowling face be on Mount Rushmore, but 95% is not very stiff opposition, and I can be pretty certain that most if not all of those 5% dissents were on bills that safely passed without her vote -- they are window dressing and understood to be so.
She will run ads that are personal testimonials from constituents that she has provided service for, but there aren't 8,500 of them.
I wanted to amend this slightly, as I seem to have to be standing in for a state here. Most Mainers are happy to support people who are not originally from Maine. According to Wikipedia, current Senator Angus King was born in Virginia, and Nirav Shah, co-leader in a recent poll of the Democratic party candidate for governor, hails from Wisconsin. Are there Mainers who would be biased towards candidates who were born in Maine? Probably some, but not enough to account for much of a margin, although moving to Maine as a very wealthy person and immediately running for state-wide office probably wouldn't go over all that well. Maybe Sara Gideon was slightly disadvantaged insofar as her role, Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, did not get her in front of television cameras as much as Angus King (previously a popular local PBS personality) or Nirav Shah (remarkably multi-talented and down-to-earth CDC director who gave weekly briefings that were appointment TV in Maine during the COVID years).
I’d also like to add that as Mr. Silver’s post mentions, Mainers are happy to support Republicans. I think that’s in part because people from both political parties have some reverence for Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith for being one of the first to publicly oppose Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s. Same goes for Republican (then Representative, later Senator) Bill Cohen, who voted to impeach Nixon. Susan Collins did not vote to impeach Trump, saying “I think he’s learned his lesson,” which was apparently to surround himself with sycophants. Her tendency to vote in opposition mostly when the opposition loses increasingly comes across as a duplicitous, calculated sham rather than moderation. When ICE came to Maine, rather than remark on their often unconstitutional, brutal, and as a local police chief said, “unprofessional” tactics, she implied that she pulled strings to get them to leave. Well, that’s not good enough for me, and I think a majority of Mainers will say it isn’t good enough for them either, even as she plays the card of getting federal dollars into the state.
"While I personally don’t care much about a candidate’s personal conduct, so long as it doesn’t impact his performance in office."
The problem with this reasoning is that a person with poor personal conduct is susceptible to influence and pressure from those who know their secrets. So, it ends up impacting their performance in office, like it or not.
The fact that Platner's Totenkopf tatoo wasn't disqualifying is very disturbing to me. You couldn't find one other candidate that was a better choice?
That was my thought - there's more than a million other people in Maine, surely this isn't them sending their best.
Can’t articulate exactly why this doesn’t concern me for Platner’s chances, but it doesn’t. Maybe it’s because Susan Collins is 72 years old and has been in office for many years - like Mills, she has some Biden-gunk on her. And I think the electorate is just fed up with older politicians who don’t know when it’s time to quit, no matter which party they’re from. Unless something REALLY egregious emerges about Platner (like if he actually unapologetically CHEATS on his wife between now and Election Day), I still predict a comfortable win for him in November.
Susan Collins is ONLY 72 --- that's just getting started in national politics these days. She will be 80 when she finishes her six-year term, a good time to stop. She's a respectable Maine woman who has been winning for a long time --- I think Maine will decide to let this Platner guy grow up a little longer. He could try again later.
I don’t live in ME, and I don’t hate Collins, but I think she will suffer from being too establishment-y. Dems like me who are furious about Trump/lickspittle Rs (and I’m not saying she’s one of them) AS WELL AS the Dem establishment for being complete morons, with no end in sight, will be walking into voting booths with both middle fingers straight up this fall, and I think Platner is well-positioned to seize on that double-headed rage. But what do I know - seems like you’re a Maine voter, and you might be right. Assuming free and fair elections, we’ll know in a few short months!
No, Maryland, not Maine voter, but I am interested in your point that Democrats are furious at BOTH parties. And so may do unpredicted things, especially if the acts are anti-establishmentarian. I'm on the pre-publish buy list for Barney Frank's book out posthumously in September -- and as a Republican I wouldn't normally be interested in what Frank has to say! -- but apparently his book is just a jeremiad against his party's crazy far-left swing that lost so many voters.
I think this should be really concerning. Platner sexting on Kik a few years ago isn't where journalists are going to let the story sit. They're going to go digging, everyone hoping to get a by-line on a Swalwell-level scandal. That's why they publicized his Kik username and it's concerning that when they checked his Kik profile apparently still active since they were able to see a profile picture.
Another point is that Congress has recently gone through an upheaval in having a much lower tolerance for sexual misconduct. Of course Mainers are the ones to elect their Senators, but if there's a hint of a difference in power dynamics between Platner and whoever he was flirting with then I think it will cost him a lot of support.