The fight between Gov. Janet Mills and Graham Platner in Maine’s high-stakes Democratic Senate primary is entering a new, more aggressive phase.
Mills’ campaign released a new ad Tuesday aimed squarely at Platner’s online history, referencing two disparaging remarks he made in 2013 about victims of rape. The 30-second spot features women voters in Maine reading about the remarks and reacting negatively, with one calling him a “bully” and another saying the comments were “disqualifying.”
The ad ends with an image of a shirtless Platner, a tattoo visible near his right shoulder that was revealed last year to be of a Nazi symbol. Platner, a newcomer to politics, said he was unaware of the tattoo’s meaning when he got it 20 years ago and has subsequently covered it up.
“Graham Platner: The closer you look, the worse it gets,” a narrator says.
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The ad marks what the governor’s campaign views as a new stage of the primary, one which Mills will approach with “a more aggressive posture” that will be “ready to litigate Platner’s record,” a source close to the campaign said. The two candidates are battling to win the party’s June 9 primary and face Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November, in what national Democrats consider one of their best chances to flip a Senate seat this midterm election.
Mills, a sitting two-term governor and the preferred choice of Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, is facing an unexpectedly tough fight against Platner, a veteran and oyster farmer with no national name recognition before he entered the race.
Platner’s pitch — he casts himself as an anti-politician trying to bring about a blue-collar revolution in Washington — has led to fame among some Democrats and vaulted him into the lead in the primary, according to polls.
He has maintained his lead despite an array of controversies last year, after news reports revealed he had made a series of incendiary remarks on the social media website Reddit and he had acknowledged the presence of the Nazi tattoo. The Marine veteran has apologized for the comments, blaming it on trauma from his service in the Afghanistan War and saying he no longer believes in what he wrote then.
The controversies led to the departure of some key members of Platner’s campaign but seemingly did little to slow his momentum with voters.
But Mills’ campaign and other supporters of the governor think rank-and-file voters still don’t know about Platner’s past. When informed, they say, they will reject him as a candidate because of both the substance of the remarks and the fear that he would be unelectable against Collins, a moderate Republican incumbent who has won five terms in a state that routinely votes for Democratic presidential candidates.
“The majority of voters don’t live on Twitter or digest every piece of news, and Platner hasn’t been the subject of a negative ad campaign,” said the source close to the campaign
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