Zeteo

04/30/2026

With over a month left in the Democratic primary, Graham Platner is now the party’s presumptive nominee for US Senate in Maine, in the pivotal fight against fake moderate Susan Collins, the five-term Republican incumbent.

Janet Mills suspended her campaign on Thursday, reluctantly ceding the primary to Platner without endorsing him. An anti-war, anti-Israel oysterman and Marine combat veteran, Platner was a complete unknown when he launched his bid. He faced his share of scandals and negative news coverage while building a massive lead in the polls – and ultimately cruising to the nomination.

That Platner came out of nowhere to take control of the race is an embarrassment for Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who recruited Mills, the two-term incumbent governor, into the race.

Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, put out a humbling statement on Thursday indicating they will support Platner moving forward. “After years of allowing Trump’s abuses of power, Senator Collins has never been more vulnerable and we will work with the presumptive democratic nominee Graham Platner to defeat her,” they wrote.

Zeteo broke the news of Platner’s launch in August, and we’ve followed his campaign on the ground in Maine. Platner, who was backed early on by Bernie Sanders, appears to be building a grassroots machine, with the candidate declaring in recent weeks that his campaign has 15,000 volunteers. He has packed town hall after town hall around the state, sharing his views with voters and his anger at the political system, presenting a left-wing message focused on building worker power and beating back the forces robbing Americans of their worth, freedom, and time.

Much of the mainstream media and many liberals on social media wrote Platner off after it was revealed that he for many years had a skull-and-crossbones tattoo he got as a Marine that resembled a Nazi symbol. News outlets also dug up Platner’s old Reddit posts, which included misogynistic and bigoted comments, among other things.

The scandals did surprisingly little to affect his primary campaign. He covered his tattoo up, denied he knew its meaning, and apologized. He also apologized for many of his Reddit posts. (It should be noted that throughout his campaign Platner has consistently spoken out against xenophobia, fascism, and right-wing culture-war campaigns against LGBTQ+ communities.)

In Maine, it has been clear that voters were not scared off by the news coverage – and polls supported this. Recent surveys found him with a 30-point lead over Mills, and that he’s leading Collins, too.