Voters Weigh In: From Waterville to Ogunquit, Mainers Are Standing By Graham Platner
A new survey finds the anti-genocide Platner with a blistering lead over sitting Gov. Janet Mills. Our correspondent finds the energy on the ground matches the numbers in the spreadsheet.
OGUNQUIT, Maine—By 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, the Leavitt Theatre, a 1920s movie house in this small village of 1,600 on the coast, was already standing room only, with many of its 600 attendees forced to sit in an overflow area.
The packed house would soon become social media fodder for the campaign of Graham Platner, a Maine Democrat beset this week by a flood of opposition research. Mainers, voting with their feet at town halls up and down the state over the past week, have sent a strong signal that they are not taking directions from Washington anymore.
The oppo, as it’s known in the industry, exposed Platner’s years-old offensive Reddit posts and a skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his chest with links to Nazi insignia. The oppo was leaked out in a steady drip, designed for maximum damage and strategically timed with the entry of two-term Democratic Gov. Janet Mills into the race. Before Platner took the stage, another drip dropped, this one an article in The Advocate, an LGBT-focused news outlet, revealing Platner repeatedly used the word “gay” in a mocking way and deployed an anti-gay slur. “The revelations come on the same day Platner is scheduled to hold a town hall in Ogunquit,” wrote The Advocate, “a seaside resort long known as one of New England’s most prominent LGBTQ+ destinations, featuring a thriving gay community and Pride celebrations that draw visitors from across the region.”
“It’s been a helluva week,” said Platner as he took the stage. “I went from being a communist on Thursday to a Nazi by Monday.”
Platner opened his address by discussing the skull tattoo. Just a day earlier, Platner sent the internet into a frenzy over a skull tattoo revealed to be inked on his chest resembling Nazi iconography. He claimed ignorance of the tattoo’s links but apologized and fully covered the tattoo with Celtic knots and dogs. “I got it covered because I do not want something on my body that represents in any way the antithesis of my politics,” Platner said. “I grew up as a little punk rock kid listening to Dead Kennedys and Dropkick Murphys. So, I would say hating and fighting Nazis has been a big part of how I see myself. My continued disgust of racism, anti-semitism and Nazism has been a constant throughout my life. And still today anchors much of my politics.”
He concluded, “Fascism is a cancer, and it has no place here.” The statement was met with a raucous applause.
Christian Millian, 39 of Wells, a town neighboring Ogunquit, told Drop Site he was choosing to offer the kind of grace he’d like to be shown in his own worst moments. “I’m not dissuaded by a bad tattoo, or some bad comments. I’ve lived long enough to know people make mistakes, and I’ve never been someone to throw a person by the wayside because they misstep. Otherwise, I’d be on the wayside,” he said.
Justin Michaels, a 65-year old man from Alfred, found Platner through social media. He described himself as a “policy voter” that was interested in hearing from a candidate who takes “no corporate funding or money from AIPAC.”
The Ogunquit Town Hall was Michael’s first Platner event. While he wanted to ensure Platner was genuinely unaware the tattoo could resemble offensive fascist symbols, it was not his primary concern. “As a gay man, I’ve worn pink triangles. That was considered a Nazi symbol. It’s about the intent. I have to believe he did not know what his tattoo resembled.” Michaels said.
Genevieve McDonald, Platner’s former political director, who resigned as the scandal unfolded, has said that she accepts the likelihood Platner didn’t know what the tattoo was when he got it, but as a “history buff” must have eventually learned, yet only covered it up recently. But Platner’s supporters indicated such as that his willingness to stand explicitly against U.S. support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza was more front of mind.
“Today we are living in a time where we are spending billions of dollars to eradicate people,” said Michaels. “So to think everyone is getting mad at a tattoo? While we are seeing a genocide unfold? And we are paying for it?”
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders—who rallied with Platner on Labor Day—suggested the same during a brief interview in Washington, laughing out loud at the question. “We are dealing with a collapsing healthcare system,” he said. “As a result of Trump’s policies, 50,000 Americans may die unnecessarily every year and you are asking me about whether or not a guy should get a tattoo removed?”
Maine voters broadly, it turns out, agree with Sanders and the town hall attendees. On Thursday morning, the University of New Hampshire released its survey of the race, finding 58% of Maine Democrats are backing Platner and just 24% are behind the sitting governor. (Jordan Wood, whom Drop Site reported on previously, sat at 1%.) The survey found Platner and Mills competitive with voters over 65 (with Platner up 39-34) but with Platner crushing Mills among all other Democratic voters. The winner will take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins. The survey went into the field the day that CNN and Politico first revealed his Reddit posts, and wrapped just as the tattoo story was breaking.
The survey may have come as a shock to Democratic Party leadership, which recruited and is financially backing Mills, but the sense among voters that the party establishment has its guns trained on Platner has only solidified support for him.
On Thursday October 16, two days after Mills entered the race, CNN and Politico ran exclusive stories on Platner’s Reddit history. The outlets cited a handful of comments Platner made over 15 years and 1,800 posts on the platform, painting him, using his own words, as a cop-hating communist who loves guns and despises rural people.
The CNN and Politico stories were followed up by a piece in the Bangor Daily News citing two additional unearthed Reddit comments made by Platner in 2013. The story was titled, “Graham Platner asked why Black people ‘don’t tip’ and referenced rape in old Reddit posts.”
Meanwhile, the same night CNN and Politico ran their Reddit stories, Platner held an event at the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) hall in Waterville, a revitalized paper mill town of 16,000 on the Kennebec River in Central Maine.
Much like in Ogunquit, while mainstream media outlets declared online that Platner was finished, almost 400 Mainers jammed into the VFW to hear him speak. Two hundred more people stood outside in an overflow parking lot—on a windy Maine night, with a dog howling nearby—listening intently to speakers projecting Platner’s pitch.
At the Waterville event, Platner took ownership of his Reddit comments, apologized for transgressions, discussed the influence of hyper-masculine military environments, and emphasized a continued desire to improve as a person. The sincerity of Platner’s statements resonated with many in attendance, some of whom hadn’t even heard of the Reddit controversy at the time.
“I liked that he addressed the Reddit comment issue straight out. It was honestly the first I’d heard about it. I don’t find the comments dissuading. I think anyone our age and younger is going to have a past on the internet,” said Sharon McCarthy, a 50-year-old woman from Waterville who attended the VFW event with her 26-year old son and 45 year-old husband. “A lot of us said things we aren’t proud of in our younger years and have learned and grown since then. Since he addressed it straight out, didn’t deny or deflect, and said he had changed, I’m willing to give him that grace.”
Platner volunteers have stood by him, too. The campaign currently has more than 11,000 volunteers sign-ups. Their Discord server hosts over 1,000 members with dedicated organizing channels for all 16 Maine counties.
Those organizers are also now being deployed into an effort to vote down an amendment in November that would smash absentee voting in Maine. On Monday, the campaign announced over Discord that they held their largest phone bank yet and more than 100 volunteer leaders had attended the campaign’s most recent leadership training seminar. “We have thousands of volunteers ready to take action to save absentee voting with 20+ canvass locations and counting,” a senior campaign organizer told the Discord.
“It’s a powerful thing, standing in solidarity with your neighbors, and I think it brings out the best in people,” Anthony Feldpausch, 38, said. He drove from Rome, a Maine town of 1,000 people about 30 minutes west of Waterville, to volunteer for Platner at the VFW event.
“Having 200 people standing in a parking lot of the Waterville VFW staring at a speaker in the cold certainly makes you feel like there’s something big happening here.”
Back in Ogunquit, Shay McGovern, a woman in her mid-seventies from Portland, had first seen the oysterman at the Labor Day “Fight the Oligarchy” rally with Bernie Sanders. “The reason he’s getting attacked is because he’s a contender. I know Graham’s followers are not intimidated,” she said. “Whom among us in the last 10 or 15 years hasn’t said something that we regret. We’ve all said or done something.”
Before McGovern moved to Maine, she lived in Vermont, where Sanders was her senator and often found himself at odds with party leadership. “Bernie is like everyone’s uncle. He’s available. You know his lifestyle, you trust him,” Mcgovern said. “I think Graham could be that same kind of person. The fact he grew up in Maine, has had an interesting life, he’s one of us. He’s someone I trust.”
Millian, the voter from Wells, similarly said he suspected Mills and the national party were behind the avalanche of news stories. “These things have only come out since Janet Mills announced her candidacy, that’s not a coincidence,” Millian said. “They’ve obviously been muckraking and dragging up anything they can on this guy now that there’s a DSCC-approved candidate in, who’s basically going to die in office, she’s 77 or 78.”
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee quickly launched a joint fundraising operation with Mills after her recent entry into the race on October 14, and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer followed with an endorsement, calling her a “tested, two-term governor.” Just how safe a pick she is, however, is belied by the UNH survey, which found 55% of Mainers disapproving of her job as governor, a significant dip since August.
In the UNH poll, Platner beat Mills 52-28 among women and 65-18 among men. His lead is 57-28 even among self-described moderates (the survey spoke with 97 of them). While Platner is leading Mills with voters of all ages, she is faring absurdly poorly with voters aged 18-34, with Platner winning 75% of the vote to Mills’ 14.
Following Platner’s Ogunquit speech, he fielded questions from the crowd. The final query of the evening came from a middle-aged man in a tan jacket who introduced himself as a libertarian.
Turning to the woman seated to his left, he said, “She brought me here, and is probably horrified that I’m speaking right now,” drawing guffaws from the audience.
“I have one question. I’m a libertarian. I think the system is broken. I really do,” he said. “If you were to become a senator – which I’m here, I’m listening. Term Limits? 30, 40, 50 years, we’ve had the same people,” the libertarian asked.
Platner strongly endorsed term limits and getting money of politics but said the change needed to happen more deeply. “I also think it needs to be part of a larger democracy reform, where we ban stock and bond trading,” Platner said. “We absolutely need to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizen’s United. To do these things, is going to require electing people with the political will to accomplish it.”
“I have not lived a life in which I was trying to be a United States senator. I have no interest in being wealthy, frankly I have very little interest in personal power,” Platner continued. “My wife Amy and I were going to run an oyster farm, I was going to be the Harbormaster in Sullivan until the day I died.”
His comment struck a chord, and it was a rare case of a contemporary left-wing politician effectively engaging a conservative voter. “That’s a good life,” the libertarian called from the crowd. “It’s honest.”
“It’s a perfect life,” Platner replied back. “That is the life I hope to return to someday.”
“I know that I can say these words, and I hope that over the next year, the actions of myself and the campaign put truth to these words,” Platner concluded. “I’m just going to ask you to have some faith in me.”
Correction: This story previously incorrectly stated the number of counties in Maine. It is 16, not 18.
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Very up lifting articule. Platner a breath of fresh air from Maine.
Thank you for covering this story.