… leaving the Nazi tattoo guy to face incumbent Republican Susan Collins.

Mills is 78, and I think her heart wasn’t in it, but she also ran out of money. New York Magazine refers to her campaign as “lackluster,” and that’s a fitting description.

More:

Senate Democrats had touted Mills as a top recruit to take on Collins, who is the only Republican senator representing a state that President Donald Trump lost last year. Maine is practically a must-win if Democrats are to net the four seats they need to take control of the chamber in the 2026 midterm election. But Collins has proven a tough opponent in previous elections.

After launching her Senate campaign in October, Mills struggled to gain traction against Platner, who burst onto the scene as a brash political newcomer and quickly built a loyal following. Platner notched endorsements from high-profile progressive leaders including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

Most importantly, he built major support among Maine Democrats, leading by double digits in recent polls of the primary. Platner’s rise — and the governor’s struggles — came despite top Democrats’ preference for Mills, turning this campaign into a rare rebuke of party leaders in a top-tier race.

Mills was kind of the Jeb Bush in the race, except for the lack of money. Note the NBC piece linked and quoted there doesn’t mention Platner’s most salient characteristic, the Nazi tatoo, early on. You have to get very deep into the article – paragraph fourteen – before it’s mentioned, and then it’s described as classic “Republicans POUNCE!”:

Republicans have already begun to attack Platner, as he pulled ahead in the primary. The GOP super PAC Pine Tree Results PAC launched an ad Monday highlighting those controversial social media posts and Platner having a tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol. Platner has said he was not aware of the Nazi connection and has since covered up the tattoo.

Well, doesn’t everybody get a Totenkopf tattoo and not know what it is? Could happen to anyone. More, from Platner’s Wiki page:

While acknowledging the resemblance, he said he had not been aware of it until reporters and political operatives from DC contacted him during his campaign. He said he had recently gotten it covered up. CNN and Jewish Insider reported that an anonymous former acquaintance of Platner’s claimed that Platner was aware of the tattoo’s meaning and had previously called it “my Totenkopf”. Maine governor Janet Mills, one of Platner’s opponents in the Democratic primary, called the tattoo “abhorrent”.

Ah, but that’s really the least of it. There’s this:

In October 2025, various news outlets reported on Reddit posts Platner made between 2013 and 2021 in which he called himself a “communist”, wrote that all cops are bastards, and agreed with a post calling rural white Americans “racist and stupid”. In an interview with CNN, Platner said of those comments, “That was very much me fucking around the internet … I don’t think any of that is indicative of who I am today”. In a 2013 Reddit discussion about anti-rape underwear, Platner wrote that people worried about assault should “take some responsibility for themselves and not get so fucked up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to”.

Platner also referenced political violence in multiple posts; in 2018, he wrote: “Fight until you get tired of fighting with words and then fight with signs, and fists, and guns if need be.” He also wrote that “an armed working class is a requirement for economic justice” and urged readers to “Get Armed, Get Organized. The Other Side Sure As Hell Is.” He has said that many of the comments do not represent his current political beliefs, and that they were the product of disillusionment after his military discharge and struggles with PTSD.

Collins called Platner’s internet history “terrible” and “offensive”. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said that while he did not approve of Platner’s comments, he did not consider them “disqualifying”. Platner said in an interview with Semafor, “How do you expect to win young people? How do you expect to win back men when you go back through somebody’s Reddit history and just pull it all out and say: ‘Oh my God, this person has no right to ever be in politics?’ Good luck with that. Good luck winning over those demographics.”

Of course Martin doesn’t consider them “disqualifying.” Au contraire; they match the mood of the party and its up-and-coming younger candidates. Platner is 41, by the way, born in 1984. You do the math; we’re not talking about posts or comments he made in high school. He was 29 years old in 2013 and 37 in 2021, the years in which the posts were made. Hardly an impressionable child, and not that long ago.

From Platner’s Wiki page:

[Platner says in an early campaign video] “I did four infantry tours in the Marine Corps and the Army. I’m not afraid to name an enemy. And the enemy is the oligarchy. It’s the billionaires who pay for it, and the politicians who sell us out. And yeah, that means politicians like Susan Collins.”

This video received 2.5 million views in its first 24 hours, sparking national media attention. The campaign raised $1 million in its first nine days, and reported amassing over 2,700 volunteers.

Senator Bernie Sanders endorsed Platner on August 30, ahead of a Fighting Oligarchy tour appearance in Portland with Platner and Maine gubernatorial candidate Troy Jackson. The event had originally been scheduled to be held in an auditorium but had to be moved to a much larger arena due to high public interest. Platner has also been endorsed by former United States Secretary of Labor Robert Reich; Senators Ruben Gallego, Martin Heinrich, and Elizabeth Warren; and Representative Ro Khanna. He has also been endorsed by the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, Maine State Nurses Association, and United Auto Workers.

You get the picture. He also is running as a working-class Joe, but it seems to me – from his Wiki page – that he had a very comfortable family situation growing up: restaurant owner (in resort area) and lawyer parents, private high school in Connecticut, architect grandfather of some renown (grandpa designed the interior of the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center, Windows On the World).

Graham seems to be hiding the extent of his leftism, another common theme among Democrat candidates these days. From Wiki again:

Before running for office, Platner described himself on Reddit as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America who was “pretty radically left” and a “vegetable growing, psychedelics taking socialist” (in 2017) and “rabidly anti-Hillary [Clinton]” (in 2016 Democratic presidential primaries). In a December 2025 interview with The New Yorker, he declined to call himself a socialist and described his political involvement before his campaign as “organizing around mostly local economic justice issues or social justice issues”.

Blahbity blah.

Does Platner have a chance of winning? Yes, especially if you believe polls:

RealClearPolitics’ polling aggregate shows Platner with an average 7.6-point lead over Collins as of Thursday morning. Collins held a 0.2 point lead over Mills in polling average.

Maine backed former Vice President Kamala Harris by about 7 points in the 2024 presidential election and is generally viewed as Democratic-leaning but with an independent streak. Collins, a popular Republican in the state, has been able to win thanks to bipartisan credentials. Democrats believe she may be in for her toughest race yet, given President Donald Trump’s declining nationwide popularity.

I think it’s way too early to tell, and the polls aren’t especially meaningful. But Collins is definitely threatened. And no, a more conservative Republican wouldn’t have a chance in Maine. Collins has carefully positioned herself for years to be carefully calibrated to Maine’s basically blue/purple tastes.