PORTLAND, Maine — In the last three weeks, Graham Platner has faced enough damaging revelations to potentially sink just about any candidate. The Democratic Senate hopeful has apologized for past online posts making offensive comments, covered up a tattoo on his chest that has a Nazi association and lost top staff.
Yet Platner is still standing.
The 41-year-old oyster farmer and combat veteran spoke to a packed crowd at the State Theatre here on Sunday, counted at 745 attendees by his campaign, about his vision for “building power.”
“It is amusing for me to watch the campaign described in the media as collapsing or falling apart — when internally, we frankly have not felt this strong since the beginning,” Platner told NBC News after the event. “It hasn’t sunk my campaign. In fact it seems, in many ways, it’s strengthened us.”
He said that’s because he has addressed his past head-on and not run from it.
“I want to talk about my evolution as a human being,” he said. “A lot of Americans also want to have hope that you can change and that you can evolve, and that we can have a society that gives grace and forgiveness to people. Because if we can’t, if we think that people are just ossified into who they are right now, and can never be something different, then what’s the point?”
The Maine Senate race is shaping up to be one of the key fights of the 2026 midterms, with Platner trying to take advantage of the restlessness in the Democratic Party. A progressive populist who has the support of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Platner is running on a platform of universal health care, housing affordability and ending U.S. involvement in foreign wars.
In a wide-ranging interview, Platner addressed the scandals that have engulfed his campaign and said he’s “very proud of who I am today” after the “arcs and valleys” of his life. He inveighed against “establishment politics,” dished on his tense relationship with national Democratic leaders, made the case that he’s more “electable” than Democratic Gov. Janet Mills and explained why he went from voting for Republican Sen. Susan Collins years ago to viewing her as an empty vessel today.
Platner also said he isn’t lamenting his staff departures, which include his political director and finance director.
“We find ourselves now in a significantly stronger position, team-wise,” he said. “While we lost some people, we’ve kept almost everybody, and people that have stayed are galvanized and committed.”
A dozen rally attendees — including some who supported Collins in the past — said they don’t consider Platner’s past comments disqualifying. Some voters said it gave them pause and they’re undecided; others said they accept his explanations and plan to vote for him in the primary.
“It gave me pause, but I read his responses and I’m still intrigued to hear more about him,” said Emily Bukowski-Thall, of Portland, Maine.
Her husband, Michael Bukowski, added, “If you look at the controversies surrounding the current president, this is nothing.”
Platner responded to the pitch from Mills and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., that the two-term governor is a battle-tested and safe option to unseat Collins.
“I think my ‘lack of experience’ is a positive,” he said. “People don’t want establishment politicians. People don’t want to see the same playbook run over and over and over again — a playbook which, by the way, has failed to unseat Susan Collins time after time. I firmly believe that the real risk is running an establishment candidate that is not trying something new.”
In response, Mills campaign spokesperson Scott Ogden said in a statement, “Governor Mills is the only Democrat in this race who has stood up to Donald Trump, who has won two statewide elections, and who has delivered real results for working Maine families — including expanding health care to more than 100,000 Maine people, fully funding education, guaranteeing free school meals, delivering free community college, protecting abortion rights, and fighting climate change.”
While some attendees at Sunday’s rally said the 77-year-old Mills is too old for their taste, Platner said that isn’t his concern: “This is not about age. It is about how old your ideas are.”
Platner said he has received no outreach from Schumer or Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, or from DSCC staff.
“We have made it very clear that I’m very open to those discussions. But no, no one has reached out,” he said, while adding that he would welcome the support of the deep-pocketed DSCC in a general election. “We have been very clear that we are not trying to have a friction-filled relationship, though that has been rebuffed on multiple occasions… The ball is in their court.”
NBC News reached out to the DSCC for comment.
Platner said he has “voted for Susan Collins at least once, possibly twice” but “it was a long time ago” — as the 72-year-old incumbent closes in on 30 years in the Senate.
“I also believed back then that she was a moderate. As time has gone by, I don’t believe that. I think that’s a charade, and it’s worn thin,” he said. “I see Collins as, frankly, just another self-interested, establishment politician who uses this kind of myth of their moderation to stay in power, but doesn’t really do anything with their power. She’s the chair of the Appropriations Committee. I was told for years that when she got the gavel, there was going to be a boon of riches for the state of Maine. That is not materializing.”
Collins spokesperson Blake Kernen noted that she has been ranked multiple times by the Lugar Center and Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy as the most bipartisan U.S. senator. In addition, Collins’ Senate website highlights that she has secured more than $1 billion in congressionally directed spending for projects in Maine over the last three fiscal years.
Elizabeth Lardie Thompson, an attendee of the rally from Bath, Maine, said she felt “very betrayed” by Collins after voting for her. She pointed to Collins’ support of conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and “not listening” to her constituents on health care.
“I think she’s beholden to her party much more than she’s beholden to her state,” Thompson said. “I really don’t care; red, blue, whatever, but I do have a problem with how Collins has handled herself recently.”
Cathay Getchell from Scarborough, Maine, also previously voted for Collins, but she said that she is concerned about the senator’s age and alignment with the “establishment” of the Republican Party.
“She’s been there too long and we need a change,” Getchell said outside of the rally.
Collins has picked her moments to break with the GOP, like in opposing President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” to extend tax breaks and cut Medicaid spending. But she also gives the GOP a valuable vote to ensure the Senate remains controlled by Trump’s allies. As she seeks another six-year term in this blue-leaning state, Collins is expected to run another local campaign and tout the money she has brought home to Maine.
“Her primary role at this point is to function as cover for the Republicans to maintain a majority of the Senate,” Platner said. “I think that her votes on Brett Kavanaugh and her votes on RFK Jr. show that she is not interested in actually holding up the moderate side of the moderate bargain, and that we deserve better.”
A few weeks ago Collins slammed Platner’s since-deleted Reddit posts from 2020 and 2021 after they were reported by CNN, calling them “terrible” and “really offensive.”
“I was appalled when I read those comments,” she told Maine reporters. “First of all, as someone who comes from rural Maine, for him to have described white people living in rural Maine as racist and stupid. Just the opposite is the case.”
Asked to respond, Platner said he “did not denigrate white, rural older voters.”
“I did get in a fight with somebody and say that some rural white voters were stupid and racist,” he said, adding that anybody who reads those posts will see that he defends them more than he criticizes them. “I myself am a rural white voter in eastern Maine. These are my neighbors and my friends. I actually rise to their defense often and continue to do so.”
“I don’t want to be flippant about it, but I was getting in arguments on the Internet … at a part in my life when I was looking for interaction and engagement, at a time where I was feeling quite isolated and alone and very disillusioned at that point,” he added. “I do not hold those feelings.”
In one of his posts, Platner wrote, “I got older and became a communist.” He said he has never considered himself to be a communist and that the comment was merely “Internet shitposting — and also … if you read it’s very clear that I’m joking.”
“I believe in Medicare for all. I believe in expanding the rights of workers to organize. I believe in taxing the ultra-rich. I believe in a fairer economic system,” he said. “I also know that because I believe in those things, people will refer to me as that no matter what… That’s the joke.”
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