Graham Platner, the populist Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, is in a virtual dead heat in a crucial Senate showdown with longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins, according to a new poll.
\nPlatner, the embattled candidate who has been facing a slew of controversies, stands at 49% support among likely voters questioned in a New York Times\/Portland Press Herald\/Siena poll released on Monday, with Collins at 47%, and 3% of respondents undecided or refusing to answer. Platner\u2019s two-point edge is within the survey\u2019s sampling error, meaning the contest is virtually tied.
\nCollins, a moderate Republican who at times votes against President Donald Trump\u2019s agenda, is running for a sixth six-year term in the Senate.
\nThe high-profile and likely combustible and expensive race is among a handful that will determine if the GOP holds onto its slim Senate majority in November\u2019s midterm elections. Republicans currently control the chamber 53-47 and flipping the Senate seat in left-leaning Maine is a key part of the Democrats\u2019 path to retake the majority.
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Platner, a military combat veteran and oyster farmer who is backed by progressive champions Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Rep. Ro Khanna of California, earlier this month easily defeated two longshot rivals in Maine\u2019s Democratic Senate primary.
\nPlatner, who advocates an economically populist agenda as he takes aim at corporate influences and advocates for the working class, also topped two-term Democratic Gov. Janet Mills in the primary. The governor\u2019s name remained on the ballot even though Mills, who had been backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democrats\u2019 campaign arm, suspended her bid this spring after significantly trailing Platner in fundraising and polling.
\nPlatner\u2019s victory also came as he was facing one of the roughest stretches of his bid for the U.S. Senate.
\nHe was playing defense the past couple of months amid multiple controversies. They included inflammatory online comments made on Reddit, a well-publicized and now covered-up tattoo on his chest that resembled a Nazi symbol, recent reports that he exchanged sexually explicit messages with several women while married, and allegations from ex-girlfriends of a history of rape fantasies, heavy drinking and violent episodes. Platner has called the allegations of violence untrue.
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A day before the primary, a former high-level staffer from the Platner campaign wrote in the Washington Post that Platner \u201cis not someone who would be good for Maine or for the country.\u201d
\nThe mounting controversies grabbed plenty of attention and triggered some Democrats in the nation\u2019s capital to question whether Platner was damaged goods, but didn\u2019t stop him from riding a populist wave to capture the nomination. More than 9 in 10 Platner supporters questioned in the poll said they had heard about his controversies but that their vote for him was based on where he stands on the issues.
\nPlatner, who has acknowledged his battle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from his three tours of duty in the war in Iraq with the Marines and one tour with the Army National Guard in Afghanistan, apologized for his controversial Reddit posts after some of them made headlines last fall soon after he launched his Senate campaign.
\nAnd Platner has said he got the skull and crossbones tattoo in 2007 while drinking with fellow Marines stationed in Croatia. He said that he covered up the tattoo with a new design after learning last year that it resembled a Nazi symbol. But allegations from an ex-girlfriend raise questions about Platner\u2019s timeline regarding knowledge of the tattoo.
\nIn his primary night victory speech, Platner emphasized that he\u2019s a changed man.\u00a0
\n\u201cIf you believe, as I do, that we can change our politics and change our country, then you must also believe that people can change,\u201d Platner told the crowd. \u201cAnd the reason I believe that is because I have lived it. And the reason that I have lived it is because of my wife.\u201d
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The new poll, conducted June 19-26, suggests Platner is having some difficulty winning over some voters who want the Democrats to take back power in Congress.
\nFifty-four percent of respondents said they\u2019d like to see the Democrats win back the Senate majority in the midterms, five points higher than the 49% who are supporting Platner. And Collins is capturing 10% of voters who prefer the Democrats control the Senate.
\nThe poll also indicates that a majority of Maine voters don\u2019t believe Platner has \u201cgood character\u201d or the \u201cright kind of moral values\u201d and nearly half say he\u2019s too extreme.
\nBy contrast, more than 6 in 10 say Collins has \u201cgood character\u201d and the \u201cright kind of moral values\u201d and only a third said she was too extreme for Maine.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, some Democratic respondents worried that the 41-year-old Platner, who has never held elective office, would be \u201ctoo inexperienced.\u201d
\nBut there are also warning signs for Collins.
\nA majority questioned said they thought the senator would be too supportive of Trump and even some of her own supporters worry that the 73-year-old Collins is too old to be an effective senator.
\nThe senator voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, in 2021, soon after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. And early last year she opposed the confirmation of now-Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
\nBut she is also remembered for her 2018 vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, which eventually helped the court\u2019s conservative majority overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that had legalized abortion nationwide.
\nBeating Collins won\u2019t be easy.
\nSix years ago, public opinion polls indicated the senator was headed to defeat, but Collins defied expectations and won re-election by topping then-Democratic state House Speaker Sara Gideon by nine points.
\nThe new survey is the latest to indicate Platner with a slight edge over Collins, although a Pine Tree Poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire late last month suggested Platner held a nine-point lead.
\nSpotlighting the new poll, the Platner campaign wrote in a social media post that \u201cSusan Collins has the billionaires. The lobbyists. The Super PACs. The Washington establishment. But we have Maine.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"