BIDDEFORD, Maine — Breese Reagle, a sandwich shop owner, listened carefully as someone explained the latest controversy to engulf the campaign of Graham Platner, the Maine Democrat who hopes to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in a crucial race in the November midterms.
Reagle knew about the old stuff — the inflammatory Reddit posts from 2013, the tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol Platner said was inked after a drunken night with fellow Marines — but now there was something new. Late last week, it emerged that Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, told a senior campaign aide that her husband had sent sexually explicit text messages to several women after they wed in 2023.
Reagle, 37, shook his head. “It’s like, goddamn — again?” But he loves Platner’s politics and believes Collins must go. “When push comes to shove, I’m going to vote for him,” Reagle said.
In a dozen interviews in southern Maine on Monday, Democratic voters expressed dismay at the latest revelations but only one said the news would impact her vote in the November’s elections, where Democratic hopes of winning control of the Senate hinge on the race in Maine.
Many Democratic voters brushed off Platner’s baggage, saying they were choosing to overlook his liabilities in the Trump era.
Platner is a 41-year-old oyster farmer and U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served three combat tours and has never held elected office. He is poised to win next week’s Democratic primary after his chief rival — Maine Gov. Janet Mills — announced in April that she was suspending her campaign. (Mills, 78, recently reminded voters that her name remains on the primary ballot.)
Platner’s insurgent, anti-oligarch campaign has electrified many Democrats here, drawing hundreds of people to packed town halls and inspiring a fervor that is atypical for this generally reserved New England state.
He has weathered the prior controversies, defying pundits who predicted the imbroglios would sink his campaign. Platner said he was unaware his tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol and pointed to his long history of anti-fascist views. His stepfather is Jewish, and earlier this spring, Platner hosted a Passover seder. Last year he covered up the tattoo with a Celtic symbol.
Platner also disavowed his contentious past Reddit comments, including those that downplayed sexual assault in the military, saying he made them during a time when he felt “utterly lost and isolated” as he battled post-traumatic stress disorder.
More than three-quarters of likely Democratic voters plan to support Platner, according to a poll conducted in May by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center before the latest revelations. It also showed Platner leading in a matchup against Collins in November.
Democrats have come to terms with Platner’s imperfections, said David Farmer, a Democratic political consultant in Maine. The party’s voters want a different kind of candidate, an outsider “who’s going to stand up and maybe swear a little bit and be a little rough around the edges,” Farmer said. “I just don’t think that the old rules apply any longer.”
The sexting controversy was originally reported by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
On Saturday, Gertner released a five-minute video saying the couple had sought counseling to deal with their challenges. “No marriage is perfect, and I don’t want a perfect marriage,” Gertner said, as she filmed herself walking on a road near their home. “I want my marriage.”
Tara Grady-Taylor, 52, a teacher in the city of Saco, said she felt badly that Gertner was obliged to make such a video and that a former senior campaign aide had apparently revealed information shared in confidence.
For her part, Grady-Taylor was ready to forgive Platner’s older comments. And the sexting controversy “doesn’t change the amount of good he could do if he does the things he promises,” she said, standing near a public library under a cloudless sky.
Anne Morrissey, 45, a mother who works in education, rolled her eyes when asked about the latest news. “It’s 2026,” she said dryly. “There are so many real problems.” This one is a “nothingburger,” she said, that she viewed as an attempt to hobble Platner’s antiestablishment campaign.
Other Platner supporters have wrestled with his behavior and comments. Janice Loughlin, 76, a retired elementary schoolteacher, lives in the town of Old Orchard Beach, and she went to hear Platner speak at a town hall last year — the first campaign event of her life. She was impressed.
When the news emerged about his tattoo, Loughlin Googled it. She didn’t recognize the symbol herself. It looked to her like something “that a badass Marine would get with his buddies when out on the town,” she said.
The comments Platner had written on Reddit about sexual assault made her cringe but reminded her of stuff her own family members might say and later regret. The fact that he sent sexually explicit texts to women other than his wife “does speak to his character,” Loughlin said.
At the same time, in her view, President Donald Trump “has set the bar so low for anything to do with morality that it doesn’t seem all that horrible,” she said. “I’m sad it makes me feel that way.”
A 74-year-old Democrat from Saco named Sue said she was anguished by the choice in front of her. She is deeply opposed to Trump, but had been struggling with Platner’s prior controversies. The sexting revelation was the last straw. (She spoke on condition of partial anonymity because she feared backlash to her family business for sharing her decision.)
Platner is “just unethical,” Sue said. She had texted one of her sisters, who she said was similarly uneasy, to tell her she had changed her mind. “I can’t do it,” Sue wrote. “I’m voting for Susan Collins.” Sue said another of her sisters, who also lives in Maine, was untroubled (she would “vote for a worm before any Republican,” Sue said).
Older Democratic women like Sue are critical to Collins’s prospects for victory. Collins has repeatedly won reelection in this blue state by persuading a chunk of Democratic voters to join her coalition of Republicans and Independents, winning them over with a moderate and hyperlocal message of bringing federal money to the state.
On Monday evening, locals gathered at a bar and restaurant in Old Orchard Beach. Heidi Byrd, 61, struck up a conversation with an older man in a white windbreaker and baseball cap. The talk quickly turned to Platner.
The man, a Republican, predicted this wouldn’t be the last of the controversies to dog the Democrat. “It’s going to be pictures next,” the man said. “You heard it here first.”
Byrd leaned over and lowered her voice. The sexting news is just an example of “stupid male behavior,” she said.
“I don’t care, I really don’t care,” Byrd added. Platner is “genuine enough,” she said. And most of all, “we need a change.”
Liz Goodwin contributed to this report.
The post Why many Democrats say they’re voting for Platner despite sexting controversy appeared first on Washington Post.
