Graham Platner wants Democrats to believe that Trump voters and working-class independents will vote for him.
With his gruff voice, beard and sweatshirts-instead-of-suits, Platner cuts the figure of a blue-collar Mainer. His story is that of an oyster farmer and a veteran, plucked from the sea to run for U.S. Senate.
Progressive Democrats think they’ve found the ideal candidate — Nazi tattoo and Reddit posts notwithstanding — to lure back working-class voters who fled the party during the Trump years.
“I didn’t vote for Trump, but I very much understand why people did,” Platner says in a 12-minute video he posted to X with a three-time Trump voter now backing him. “Everybody down here feels like they’re getting robbed, and Trump came along and told us that, one, you are getting robbed.”
At Bentley’s Saloon, a biker bar in Arundel, Maine, with bras hanging from the rafters and at least 40 motorcycles parked outside, this shared message — that “the system is rigged” — resonated.
Two Trump voters there said they’re backing Platner, and more than a handful said they don’t like the choices. There were also plenty of Trump voters who said they’d never vote blue.
“The American people are sick and tired of being yanked around and jerked around by people who say they’re going to do something and nobody does anything,” said Charles Jones, a 60-year-old nursing home maintenance man.
Jones worked 30 years as a commercial fisherman, voted for Barack Obama and then Trump. Now he says he’s open to voting for Platner. “I am the average working man in this country.”
A Trump voter from York, Maine, who works in sales, had a similar take. He likes Platner’s “populist message” and support for Medicare for All, a sign of how much Trump has reshaped the GOP base.
“I don’t like that he’s running as a Democrat,” he said of Platner, “but I don’t like the gerontocracy more.”
(Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who dropped out of the Democratic primary, would have been the oldest freshman senator in history at 79 years old.)
Two dozen Mainers, all of whom knew about Platner’s covered-up Totenkopf tattoo, made wisecracks about it, rather than expressing concern. They also knew about his Reddit posts questioning why Black people don’t tip and whether women should “take some responsibility” to avoid sexual assault, but these don’t appear as damaging as media coverage would suggest.
However, since those conversations in late May, there have been reports of Platner sexting with multiple women and using an app notorious for arranging sexual encounters with minors.
Kik, the app in question, has been branded a “predator’s paradise” by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, and Forbes has reported that it has been at the core of countless pedophilia scandals over the years.
While many Democrats, such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, continue to support Platner, next door in New Hampshire, his candidacy is creating headaches for his party.
When Stefany Shaheen, the daughter of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and a candidate for a Democratic congressional nomination in New Hampshire, was confronted by a Republican tracker asking whether she supported Platner’s Senate campaign, she did not answer.
Instead, according to a video of the incident, a campaign staffer repeatedly shoved a pastry into the camera as the tracker pressed the question.
“Nepo baby Stefany Shaheen had the chance to condemn Graham Platner’s vile behavior. Instead, she chose to stay radio silent while her staffer attacked a questioner with a doughnut,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokeswoman Maureen O’Toole said. “Granite Staters deserve a representative who doesn’t glaze over simple questions and whose team knows not to weaponize a baked good.”
Platner is also a problem for Rep. Chris Pappas, who is hoping to become the Granite State’s next U.S. senator. He’s also repeatedly dodged questions about the Nazi-tattooed candidate.
Former New Hampshire Sen. John E. Sununu, one of the Republicans hoping to challenge Pappas, says the congressman is condemned by his own silence.
“You’ve got a socialist with a Nazi tattoo who denigrates veterans, denigrates women, and Chris Pappas can’t summon the courage to at least say this is wrong. That he has done things that are unacceptable, he has said things that are unacceptable,” Sununu said. “It’s a lack of courage, maybe fear of people in his own party. Chris is worried about his own political future.”
Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, also seeking the GOP nomination in New Hampshire, said that every federal Democratic candidate should be challenged on the Platner issue.
“I think we should have Chris Pappas and our entire delegation answer that question,” Brown said.
In Maine, several voters said that the oysterman plucked from obscurity didn’t pass the smell test. Look for authenticity to be a main line of attack against Platner.
“He’s just a rich kid trying to play working man,” said Tregg Cliche, a logger from Arundel. “We’re all f***ing Republicans anyway. We’re never switching.”
Caroline McCaughey is a New Hampshire journalist who writes about politics and culture. She wrote this for InsideSources.com.
