Gov. Janet Mills of Maine unleashed a scathing attack in her first negative ad against Graham Platner, the progressive oyster farmer who has emerged as a formidable rival in the state’s Democratic primary race for Senate.
The ad features comments Mr. Platner made over a decade ago on Reddit about rape and depicts several women appearing to react to those posts on a iPad as a gravelly voice that bears some resemblance to Mr. Platner’s reads fragments of them aloud.
In one, Mr. Platner wrote that people worried about rape should not get so drunk — he used a phrase with an expletive to describe the level of intoxication — that “they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to.” In another, Mr. Platner wrote that to avoid what he characterized as a compromising situation, they should “act like an adult.”
In the ad, four women respond to the comments, calling them “disqualifying” and “disgusting.” “This guy gives off a vibe,” one woman says.
The ad ends with a scene of a shirtless Mr. Platner, with a magnifying glass that briefly hovers over a tattoo on his chest that resembled a Nazi symbol. He said last fall that he had gotten the tattoo covered up after being “appalled” to learn what it resembled.
The ad does not specifically mention the tattoo. But the closing line hints that more attacks could be on the way: “The closer you look, the worse it gets,” the narrator says.
The Democratic primary for Senate in Maine is among the most closely watched and consequential intraparty contests in 2026. The winner will take on Senator Susan Collins, a Republican who is widely seen as her party’s most vulnerable incumbent.
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, has backed Ms. Mills, arguing that she gives the party its best shot at defeating Ms. Collins. But Mr. Platner, 41, has drawn support from Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and a wave of small donors who see him as the younger and more combative candidate.
Ms. Mills, 78, would be the oldest freshman senator in history and has pledged to serve a single term.
Recent public surveys suggest that Mr. Platner began 2026 with an advantage despite the fact that Ms. Mills is a sitting two-term governor.
Mr. Platner apologized for a number of his old Reddit posts, which were deleted before he entered the Senate race, after they were publicized last fall.
“For those of you who have read these things and been offended, have read these things and seen someone that you don’t recognize, I am deeply sorry,” he said in a video last fall that was viewed nearly six million times.
Mr. Platner, who served in both the Army and Marines, has said he had turned to posting online at a low moment in his life after he returned from Afghanistan.
The Mills campaign said it was spending six figures to run the ad on broadcast, cable and streaming platforms in Maine.
The primary is set for June 9.
Shane Goldmacher is a Times national political correspondent.
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