THE DEMOCRATIC MESS IN MAINE. Can Graham Platner, the Democratic Senate candidate in Maine, survive his sexting scandal? The first thing to know is how little we know about it.
We know from a Wall Street Journal account that Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, who married Platner in November 2023 and who in the spring of 2025 discovered the sexual texts he sent to “several” women, told his campaign about the texts not long after he announced his candidacy in August 2025. So this is not some long-ago matter.
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Beyond that, we don’t know much. We do not know how many women were involved. We do not know what Platner said in the texts; not a single text has been quoted anywhere in media accounts. And we do not know what the recipients of the texts have to say about it. What was their reaction to receiving sexually explicit messages from the recently married Platner?
We do know that in January, in the midst of scandals over Platner’s Nazi tattoo and ugly Reddit postings, CNN’s Manu Raju asked Platner whether there were “other skeletons” in his closet that could become problems in the future. “No,” said Platner. “My life is not very complicated. And there’s not anything else coming.” We now know that wasn’t true.
We also know that Maine’s Democratic primary is next Tuesday, June 9. There are a few other candidates in the race, as well as Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME), who was a candidate until she suspended her campaign on April 30 due to low polls and poor fundraising.
In the most recent poll of the primary race from the University of New Hampshire, Platner led with 76%, followed by Mills at 10% (Due to her late decision to suspend her campaign, Mills’s name will still be on the ballot.) Little-known candidates and undecided voters make up the rest of the total.
So, Platner is really the only choice Maine Democrats have at the moment. One thing that the recent poll shows is that, at least as far as Democrats are concerned, Platner had fully overcome the Nazi tattoo and Reddit problems. They had been all over the press. Democrats knew about them, and they were OK with Platner.
The polls also showed Platner leading incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, his five-term Republican opponent. In the RealClearPolitics average of polls, five surveys of the race from early March to late May all showed Platner leading Collins by 7 to 9 points.
Now, with the sexting scandal, some Democrats might take comfort in Platner’s lead. If he could overcome the Nazi tattoo thing, plus all those offensive internet messages, then maybe he could get by the sexting problem, too.
The problem with that is that the sexting scandal has just broken. People don’t really know much about it. There will have to be more news reporting. Then there will be word of mouth. And then we will see what effect, if any, the scandal has on the polls. At the moment, though, we are seeing polls based on impressions made weeks or months ago.
It seems reasonable to expect that the sexting matter, especially if some or all of the women were unwilling recipients of Platner’s sexually oriented texts, will hurt him in the polls. Certainly, Democratic politicos in Maine are expecting trouble. “Up until now, the things that have come out, most Mainers have been pretty forgiving,” Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha told Politico after the sexting scandal broke. “The thing that bothers me about Graham is every week it seems like it’s something else.”
And that leads to the final concern — that if the Nazi tattoo wasn’t the end of it, and if the Reddit posts weren’t the end of it, why should anyone think the sexting will be the end of embarrassing revelations about Graham Platner? It’s not an exaggeration to say that nearly everyone expects there will be something else.
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“He’s going to lose,” an anonymous Maine Democratic strategist told Politico. And if that happens, it might affect other Democrats in Maine and perhaps around the country. “Is he going to be an albatross to run with?” the strategist asked. “Absolutely.”
So now some Democrats are deeply worried they will lose their chance to pick up a Senate seat in Maine, and, on top of that, they could suffer setbacks in other races in Maine and elsewhere — all because the party’s voters lost their heads for a while and picked a loser of a candidate. It’s happened in the past in other Senate races in other states. And it never ends well.
