After Graham Platner sailed to the Democratic Senate nomination in Maine on Tuesday, Democrats on Capitol Hill appeared to settle around his campaign as his progressive allies urged the rest of the party to keep their eye on winning the Senate.
Platner’s victory hadn’t been in doubt, but there were questions about what his margin of victory would be. As of Wednesday afternoon, with 92 percent of votes counted, he was leading Gov. Janet Mills, who dropped out of the race but remained on the ballot, 72 percent to 19 percent, according to The Associated Press.
A military veteran and oyster farmer, Platner first shot to national prominence last summer after launching his challenge to Republican Sen. Susan Collins as a progressive outsider attacking “the oligarchy” and seeking to center his campaign around working-class concerns.
But his campaign was soon rocked by reports that he had made several Reddit posts that were derogatory to women and minorities and that he had a tattoo on his chest resembling a Nazi symbol, which Platner has since covered up.
He appeared to weather the storm, maintaining his status as the Democratic front-runner as polls showed him leading Collins in hypothetical general election matchups. And he eventually settled into something of an alliance with Democratic leaders shortly after becoming the presumptive nominee in late April when Mills ended her campaign, citing a lack of financial resources.
