Democrats are well positioned to take back the House of Representatives this November, but the Senate is a whole other dogfight. In order to flip the upper chamber, Democrats will need to defeat entrenched incumbents, and win in states where they’re usually at a disadvantage. Virtually all roads to a Democratic Senate majority run through Maine.
That means, as things currently stand, they desperately need a scandal-plagued oyster farmer named Graham Platner to win.
Platner, the presumptive Democratic nominee for the seat, has been barnstorming Vacationland for months, and outstripping incumbent Republican Senator Susan Collins in the polls. But a new wave of reporting has saddled him with a major campaign crisis just days before voters cast their ballots in the state’s primary on June 9.
In the past week, reports emerged that Platner had sexted multiple women shortly after marrying his wife, Amy Gertner, and had displayed aggressive and “unsettling” behavior with past girlfriends.
The reports fall on top of a pile of controversies that has dogged the Platner campaign for months. These include past online comments minimizing and mocking sexual assault, as well as a questions about a Nazi tattoo he had covered up in November of last year.
Right now, Platner’s lane to the primary election is relatively secure: Janet Mills, his only significant opponent, is still on the ballot but stopped actively campaigning weeks ago, effectively conceding the race. That means Platner will almost certainly face Collins come November, unless the mounting scandals and crises he faces force him to drop out.
There’s a lot going on, so here’s what you need to know about the controversial candidate hoping to steal a Senate seat from Republicans.
Who is Graham Platner?
Platner is a Mainer by birth and an oyster farmer by trade. The 41-year-old Marine Corps veteran served eight years in the military, including three deployments to Iraq. In 2020, after leaving the military and its surrounding contractor-industrial complex, Platner took over an oyster farm in the Gulf of Maine and has been working as a local supplier since.
Platner has leaned into his working class background and military experience as the foundations of his campaign. He revealed in August of last year that he had been scouted by a coalition of union groups who were looking to field a challenger against five-term Maine incumbent Susan Collins, who has held the Republican seat for almost 30 years.
His policies echo those of a slate of candidates across the nation who are attempting to use the blatant corruption of the Trump administration, and the complacency and inaction of Congress in response, as a springboard for progressive platforms. Platner supports increased taxation on the ultra-wealthy, an end to Citizens United, Medicare for All, federal support for affordable housing construction, support for unions, a livable federal minimum wage, and an end to pointless American militarism abroad.
Platner has spoken openly about his struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after returning from his combat tours in the Middle East. He has admitted his battle with alcohol abuse, and the process of coming to terms with the “moral injury” of leaving the military and realizing that “much of what you took part in might have been bad, might have meant nothing.”
What are the accusations against him?
Platner has faced four major sets of allegations over the course of his campaign.
The first, explained in more detail below, relates to a Nazi tattoo Platner got while serving in the military.
The second scandal involves old social media posts, including a lengthy archive of Reddit posts, in which Platner expressed everything from homophobic views to racist stereotypes, and made uncouth, cynical comments about sexual assault and other topics. He also detailed some of his own political journey, discussing frankly with other users how he came to his left-wing politics.
The third scandal broke recently, when The Wall Street Journal reported that Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, flagged to campaign officials that Platner had exchanged explicit sexual messages with several other women during their relationship. Gertner and Platner went to counseling and remain married. Gertner brought up Platner’s infidelity as part of opposition research preparation within the campaign. The admission was then leaked by a former campaign aide.
The fourth scandal is the most recent, and is based on The New York Times’ reporting that Platner behaved in an “unsettling” manner in some of his past romantic relationships. The most serious allegations within the Times’ story come from Platner’s former girlfriend Lyndsey Fifield, a conservative operative who has worked for Republican campaigns and the Heritage Foundation. Fifield alleges that Platner was physically “rough” with her during their relationship, often grabbing her by the shoulders and once pulling her by the wrist from a cab. She says Platner never hit her, but that sometimes he would grab her hard enough to leave a mark. She alleges that in one incident, Platner twisted her arm and pushed her into a bedroom, trapping her inside and telling her to calm down. The incident “hurt,” Fifield told the Times, but “didn’t cause an injury.”
Fifield also alleges that Platner fantasized about “raping” home intruders and often used other violent language and imagery at home.
The Times spoke to another of Platner’s ex-girlfriends who is a Democrat and agrees with many of his policies, but who also says she wasn’t surprised to see the Reddit posts he made about women. “I was like, this makes sense,” she said. “This person does not respect women.” She cut off contact with Platner in 2021 after finding his behavior “reckless” and “unsettling.”
Platner’s campaign connected the Times to three of his other ex-girlfriends, who vouched for his character. “He was a great boyfriend,” one said.
What’s this about a Nazi tattoo?
Platner has explained that while on a drunken night out in Split, Croatia, in 2007, he had a black skull and crossbones tattooed on his chest. The specific design was nearly identical to the skull and bones symbol used by Nazi Germany’s Schutzstaffel, or SS, that was known as the totenkopf. The totenkopf is a popular symbol among neo-Nazis and far-right extremists, who often use it as an identifying symbol or dog whistle to like-minded individuals, but it is also regularly confused for more mundane skull and crossbones designs.
Platner said that he and several military friends chose the design off of a poster on the wall — most tattoo parlors are adorned with posters and paintings of “flash,” or set designs that can be done by an artist quickly — and Eastern Europe’s strong far-right street culture means Nazi or Nazi-adjacent symbols are not exactly uncommon in the kinds of tattoo parlors a group of drunken Marines would frequent.
When the tattoo was first reported in 2025, Platner claimed that he had only realized the tattoo was a Nazi symbol recently.
“It was not until I started hearing from reporters and DC insiders that I realized this tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol,” Platner said in a statement to Politico. “I absolutely would not have gone through life having this on my chest if I knew that — and to insinuate that I did is disgusting. I am already planning to get this removed.”
He first said he would get the tattoo removed, then decided to have it covered up. It’s now a Celtic knot with dogs coming out of it. Sure.
In October, CNN’s KFile uncovered social media posts from 2019 in which Platner dismissed the Nazi associations of the skull and other SS symbols, indicating he may have known about the tattoos symbolic origins long before he claims he did. CNN also spoke to an unnamed acquaintance who claimed Platner had acknowledged to them the Nazi associations of the tattoo. (The individual was later revealed to be Lyndsey Fifield, the same woman who alleged to the Times that Platner had behaved aggressively with her, and referred to his tattoo as “my totenkopf”).
Platner denied these claims during an appearance on MS NOW the night after the Times’ story was published.
How has Planter responded?
Platner has responded to the various claims, scandals, and revelations about his character with a mixture of admission of fault and flat denials. In the appearance on MS NOW, Platner delivered several blunt, unequivocal denials of the allegations within, calling his former girlfriend’s statements “politically motivated.”
“There are some allegations in this piece that I just want to be kind of unequivocal about, are simply not true. Anything alleging physicality, anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was, these are the statements of someone who’s politically motivated,” Platner told MS NOW host Chris Hayes. “In this piece, there’s a lot about my struggling, not being a good boyfriend, certainly self-medicating with alcohol. I’ve been very up-front since the beginning of this campaign that that was a pretty dark period of my life after I came back from my combat service.”
Platner discussed the tattoo in an Instagram video last year, and has spoken openly and at length about his struggles with drinking and post traumatic stress disorder in the years following his military service, factors that he claims were disruptive in past relationships.
Amy Gertner, Platner’s wife, responded to separate allegations that he exchanged explicit text messages with other women while they were together.
“We did the hard work that marriage requires. We went to counseling. We were honest with each other in ways that weren’t easy,” Gertner told The Wall Street Journal when that publication revealed Platner’s behavior. “And we came through it, not in spite of how much we’ve been through, but because of how much we love each other and the life we’ve built. Our marriage today is stronger than ever before.”
“I know who Graham is,” she told the Journal. “I know the man I married and the husband he has been to me on the best and the worst days of my life. That hasn’t changed, and it won’t.”
Platner has also been scrambling behind the scenes to assure other Democratic Party figures that he’s still the best man for the job. The Washington Post reported that Platner met with some of his early supporters, like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill — but that the meeting was less well-attended than his campaign had hoped. ““Frankly, I’m sick of it,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin told MS NOW when asked about Platner’s woes. “We’ve got a lot of bigger issues to fry here.”
How are Maine voters reacting?
Platner has held the lead over Susan Collins for months now, but amid the slow trickle of controversies, the gap has begun to narrow. According to current polling aggregates, Platner is holding a 5-7 point cushion over Collins, but that spread could shrink as the fallout of this week’s news cycle trickles through the electorate.
Even within Maine, voters seem split on how much to weigh Platner’s alleged transgressions against their appetite for younger, progressive populist candidates who are not career politicians. To some voters, the stories emerging about Platner are additional proof of the recovery he’s made and his personal growth.
“Would I date him? No, but it does play into his character. But we’re not looking for perfection,” one Maine voter recently told MS NOW. “We have a Senate that’s controlled by the Republicans who are not holding this president in check, and that is a higher priority.”
Another voter told MS NOW congressional reporter Kevin Fry that they’re not entirely sure where they would draw the line and refuse to vote for Platner, but that they “hope we do not get there.”