{"id":3463,"date":"2026-06-10T19:06:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T19:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=3463"},"modified":"2026-06-10T19:06:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T19:06:12","slug":"democrats-reluctantly-accept-platner-as-gop-wields-his-candidacy-against-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=3463","title":{"rendered":"Democrats reluctantly accept Platner as GOP wields his candidacy against them"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some Democrats have expressed concerns about Graham Platner\u2019s past. But his win Tuesday night has them warily accepting him as their U.S. Senate nominee in Maine.<\/strong><\/p>

Read more Study splits Americans into nine political groups. Where do you belong?<\/a><\/p>\n

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Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner. (Robert F. Bukaty\/AP)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

When Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) put out a joint statement on Democrat Graham Platner\u2019s win in Maine on Tuesday night, it was 80 words into the 89-word message before they mentioned the controversial Senate candidate by name.<\/p>\n

The statement, issued by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, offered no words of praise for Planter, only a prediction that Maine voters \u201cwill elect Graham Platner\u201d over Sen. Susan Collins (R), helping Democrats to retake the Senate majority.<\/p>\n

The tone of the statement highlights how national Democratic leaders, many of whom long harbored concerns about Platner\u2019s candidacy as he faces media reports about his checkered past<\/a>, are grudgingly accepting that he will be their nominee in a must-win Senate race \u2014 even as Republicans start to use Platner as a cudgel against Democrats running nationwide.<\/p>\n

Gillibrand, who chairs the DSCC, the Senate Democrats\u2019 campaign arm, declined to comment on Platner\u2019s victory when asked by reporters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to win Maine, and we are going to flip the Senate,\u201d she said as she got into an elevator, echoing earlier comments.<\/p>\n

Sen. Peter Welch (Vermont), who was among the Democratic senators who met with Platner last week to discuss his controversies, said Maine voters\u2019 views of Platner matter more than what Democrats in Washington might think.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got a lot of controversy around him, but that\u2019s been out there,\u201d Welch said. \u201cThe Democratic voters in Maine were fully aware of it, and they gave him a very solid Democratic victory in the primary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Platner struck a notably outsider tone in his acceptance speech Tuesday night in Blue Hill, Maine, where he argued that \u201cthe political establishment \u2026 keep looking for that one story, that one headline, that one moment in my life that can define the campaign by.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a veiled reference to the spate of stories about his relationships with women, including claims that he sent sexually explicit text messages<\/a> to women while married and had volatile relationships<\/a> with women he dated before that.<\/p>\n

Platner has responded to many of the allegations by attributing his behavior to poor mental health and post-traumatic stress disorder after his military service. He also denied recent allegations from an ex-girlfriend that he was physically intimidating, pointing to her past in GOP politics to question her credibility.<\/p>\n

Platner went on offense against Collins in his speech Tuesday night, hoping to make the race a referendum on her five terms in office and her ties to President Donald Trump, rather than on his personal foibles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe story of this campaign is not about how the political establishment counted me out,\u201d Platner said. \u201cIt is about how, for far too long, the political establishment has counted out the voices of every single person without the money to buy influence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Platner leaned into that message Wednesday when his campaign began airing its first ad of the general election, a spot that focuses on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s ties to both Democrats and Republicans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems the only thing the party establishments can agree on is a love of Jeffrey Epstein and a hatred of me,\u201d Platner says in the spot<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Two of the handful of Democratic senators who endorsed Platner during the primary race cheered his win and urged others to get on board.<\/p>

Read more Bill Gates tells Congress he didn\u2019t know of Epstein\u2019s crimes, renounces ties<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHe won a landslide victory last night,\u201d Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), an early endorser, told reporters Wednesday. \u201cHe is the Democratic nominee. Last I heard, Democrats want to gain control of the United States Senate. The seat in Maine is going to be pivotal to that effort. I would hope that any Democrat with common sense would be strongly supporting Platner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another Democrat who endorsed Platner during the primary, Sen. Ruben Gallego (Arizona), said the race would be driven by Maine voters\u2019 frustrations with the status quo.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to take that out on the party in power, and the party in power is Donald Trump and Susan Collins,\u201d Gallego said.<\/p>\n

There were quiet hopes among some leading Democrats in Washington and Maine that the stories would halt Platner\u2019s rise, but those ended Tuesday when he won an overwhelming victory. Nineteen percent of primary voters backed Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D), whom Schumer recruited to run for Senate but who ended her campaign in April as polls showed she was badly trailing Platner.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat last night made clear is that Democrats are very motivated to defeat Susan Collins,\u201d said Emily Cain, a longtime Mills supporter and former state senator. \u201cGraham Platner\u2019s challenge \u2014 and opportunity \u2014 now is to get the voters who didn\u2019t support him on Tuesday and a majority of the independents who will vote in November.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Platner-lite statement from Schumer and Gillibrand also stood out when compared with the way the duo lavished praise on another Democratic Senate nominee.<\/p>\n

When state Rep. Josh Turek won his primary in Iowa last week, Schumer and Gillibrand lauded him as a Paralympic hero who \u201chas built a reputation in the legislature for working across the aisle to get things done for Iowans.\u201d When former governor Roy Cooper was victorious in his Senate primary, they praised him as \u201ca champion for North Carolina families.\u201d And when former senator Sherrod Brown won his primary in Ohio, they called him \u201ca trusted leader for Ohio families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans have been eager to try to tie Platner to all Democrats. Trump, speaking to reporters from the Oval Office on Wednesday, labeled Platner \u201ca thug\u201d and said Democrats are \u201ctrying to make excuses for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. John James, a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Michigan, used Platner on Wednesday to hammer Democrats. \u201cThis is what the Democratic Party has become,\u201d James said on Fox Business<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And a memo to top Republicans from the National Republican Senatorial Committee noted that Democrats are \u201cnot treating [Platner] as disposable\u201d and are \u201cconsolidating\u201d around him, giving their party a chance to \u201cdefine Platner\u201d now and cast him as a symbol of the broader Democratic Party.<\/p>\n

Republicans are not without their own controversial candidates.<\/p>\n

Ken Paxton won the party\u2019s Senate nomination in Texas in May, despite having been impeached by the Republican-controlled state House on multiple charges of abuse of office. He had been dogged by other controversies as well, including senior staffers in his office reporting him to the FBI for allegedly using his position to help a prominent donor, and his wife filing for divorce last year on \u201cbiblical grounds,\u201d citing adultery.<\/p>\n

But Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) sought to distinguish Paxton from Platner in an interview with CNBC this week, citing the revelation that Platner had a skull-and-crossbones tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol. Platner has said he did not know the tattoo had any Nazi connections.<\/p>\n

\u201cA misogynist Nazi \u2014 if that\u2019s what the Democrat Party in this country wants to endorse and subscribe to, they\u2019ve got a candidate for that,\u201d Thune said.<\/p>\n

Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-Louisiana) took to the Senate floor Tuesday <\/b>to accuse Schumer of \u201ctaking his orders from the Graham Platner wing of the Democratic Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, the Graham Platner wing of the Democratic Party is in control,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cAnd many members of Democratic leadership are scared to death of them, and they are going to do what the Graham Platner wing of the party wants.\u201d<\/p>

Read more Five takeaways from the primaries in Maine and South Carolina<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some Democrats have expressed concerns about Graham Platner\u2019s past. But his win Tuesday night has them warily accepting him as their U.S. Senate nominee in Maine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nDemocrats reluctantly accept Platner as GOP wields his candidacy against them - Moving Insider USA<\/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:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=3463\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Democrats reluctantly accept Platner as GOP wields his candidacy against them - Moving Insider USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Some Democrats have expressed concerns about Graham Platner\u2019s past. 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