{"id":1320,"date":"2026-06-10T04:14:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T04:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=1320"},"modified":"2026-06-10T04:14:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T04:14:00","slug":"graham-platner-wins-maine-primary-as-past-scandals-loom-over-senate-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=1320","title":{"rendered":"Graham Platner wins Maine primary as past scandals loom over Senate race"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>KEY POINTS<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>Graham Platner won the Democratic nomination for the Maine Senate seat and will face incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in November, despite months of controversies that drew national attention to the race.<\/li>\n<li>Platner\u2019s campaign was rocked by his past Reddit posts, a Nazi-related tattoo and allegations of abusive behavior from former romantic partners.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The activists who recruited and vetted Platner acknowledged that their background check uncovered some concerns.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Oyster farmer, firearms instructor and veteran, Graham Platner, was declared the winner of Maine\u2019s Democratic Senate primary by The Associated Press shortly after polls closed on Tuesday night. <\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=1318\">Congress passes $70 billion immigration funding bill in major win for GOP agenda<\/a><\/p>\n<p>He was ahead of former Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who stopped campaigning in April, 72%-20%, as of late Tuesday night. <\/p>\n<p>He will face incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November\u2019s general election. <\/p>\n<p>Platner ran a campaign in support of progressive policies, including universal healthcare, a focus on climate change and increased taxes on the wealthy. <\/p>\n<p>Speaking from Blue Hill, Maine, Platner said, \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 <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe reason I believe that is because I have lived it. And the reason that I have lived it is because of my wife,\u201d Platner said. The crowd started chanting, \u201cAmy,\u201d the name of Platner\u2019s wife, and the Democratic candidate joined in. <\/p>\n<p>Amy Platner stood by her husband in recent weeks after news broke of his sexting multiple women during their marriage. <\/p>\n<p>Platner has reiterated the promise of change during his campaign over the last ten months, as various news stories and former romantic partners have brought forward controversial aspects of his past. <\/p>\n<p>These controversies have been magnified by the weight this Senate seat holds for Democrats. Incumbent Sen. Collins\u2019 seat is largely viewed as key to the party\u2019s effort to flip the Senate blue in November. <\/p>\n<h3>Controversies have dotted Platner\u2019s campaign<\/h3>\n<p>Several months after Platner launched his campaign last August, the first controversy arose. <\/p>\n<p>In mid-October, Politico and CNN published a series of the candidate\u2019s Reddit posts, which showed his political ideology and his comments about women and other members of the military. <\/p>\n<p>Five years ago, the now-41-year-old had described himself as \u201ca vegetable growing, psychedelics taking socialist.\u201c In 2018, he wrote, if people \u201cexpect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history,\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Other posts from 2020 and 2019 said respectively, \u201cAll cops are b&#8212;&#8211;ds,\u201d and \u201cAn armed working class is a requirement for economic justice.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>He also said sexual assault victims should \u201cjust take some responsibility for themselves,\u201d and said people who live in Maine \u201care actually\u201d racist and stupid. <\/p>\n<p>When news of Platner\u2019s posts broke, his political director Genevieve McDonald resigned. <\/p>\n<p>Then Platner addressed a tattoo on his chest, a Nazi-related \u201cTotenkopf,\u201d which he later covered up. <\/p>\n<p>He denied knowing what it was, saying he got the tattoo while drinking at a bar in Croatia with fellow Marines; he chose the skull and crossbones off a wall at the tattoo parlor. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was not until I started hearing from reporters and DC insiders that I realized this tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol,\u201d Platner said. <\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=1316\">New Utah coalition threatens lawsuit over planned ICE detention center<\/a><\/p>\n<p>However, a former girlfriend told The New York Times that Platner did know it was a Nazi symbol and he joked about it. He denied her allegations. <\/p>\n<p>In May, reports emerged that Platner had a history of sending sexually explicit images to women besides his wife, Amy Gertner. <\/p>\n<p>Accusations of sexual misconduct expanded in early June when The New York Times reported on the experiences of three women Platner had been romantically involved with. <\/p>\n<p>Lyndsey Fifield, 40, and Jenny Racicot, 41, told the Times that Platner\u2019s Reddit posts reinforced their beliefs that he did not respect women. Fifield described moments when Platner was rough with her. <\/p>\n<p>Platner told Fifield that rape was power, she told the Times. \u201cHe said this a lot: \u2018If anybody ever broke in here, I would rape them,\u2019\u201d she said. She added that Platner would say it would not be in \u201ca sexual way, not in a gay way &#8230; He was like, \u2018I would rape them to show them that I\u2019m dominant.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The New York Times reviewed Fifield\u2019s journal. In one entry from June 2016, she described Platner as \u201cthe most toxic literally abusive man on earth who destroyed my life.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Platner\u2019s campaign released a statement: \u201cLet\u2019s be very clear: This is a lifelong G.O.P. operative who\u2019s dedicated her career to electing Republicans.\u201d <\/p>\n<h3>Pre-campaign vetting turned up \u2018some\u2019 of the controversy<\/h3>\n<p>The Wall Street Journal published the first extensive interview on Sunday with the two out-of-state activists who \u201cfound Graham Platner.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Daniel Moraff, a Yale Law School graduate, and his fianc\u00e9e, Leanne Fan, said they went through \u201cthousands and thousands of prospects\u201d in search of a Democrat to run for Maine\u2019s Senate seat. <\/p>\n<p>They told the Journal they were looking for someone with a \u201chealthy contempt for existing Democratic party infrastructure\u201d and someone who \u201creflects the culture of the district they come from.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\u201cLeanne pulled up a video of someone with an oyster farm,\u201d Moraff said. Then they pulled up his Federal Election Commission (FEC) history. <\/p>\n<p>They \u201csaw the money he had given to Bernie Sanders and some other people, and that was enough information to know that we had the best prospect that we had ever seen,\u201d Moraff said. <\/p>\n<p>When asked how the pair vetted Platner, Moraff said, \u201cWe paid a nice firm a whole chunk of money, then we got some stuff back. Some of what you\u2019ve seen on the news we got back and other stuff we didn\u2019t.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Their vetting process did not turn up Platner\u2019s chest tattoo and only showed some of the Reddit posts that have now been published. <\/p>\n<p>Upon seeing the posts, Moraff said, \u201cNone of this will or should stop him from becoming a U.S. senator. I think if what the voters wanted were people who were grown in vats and had never done or said anything that they might regret their entire lives, we\u2019d have a very different country.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\u201cPart of our thesis here is that people do not want their candidates grown in vats, they want people who are real human beings,\u201d Moraff said. <\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=1314\">Opinion: The experiences children have in summer help form the adults of tomorrow<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Graham Platner won Maine&#8217;s Democratic primary on Tuesday night despite a series of controversies. He will face incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Graham Platner wins Maine primary as past scandals loom over Senate race - American Movers Hub<\/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:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=1320\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Graham Platner wins Maine primary as past scandals loom over Senate race - American Movers Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Graham Platner won Maine&#039;s Democratic primary on Tuesday night despite a series of controversies. 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