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. 

But Platner faced renewed scrutiny in the lead-up to Tuesday amid reports that he sent sexual text messages to women in the early days of his marriage and a New York Times report described emotionally volatile relationships with three former girlfriends. 

Still, Democrats appeared to be sticking by their embattled newly minted nominee, whom the state party could seek to replace under Maine law if Platner were to withdraw from the race by July 13. 

Vermont Sen. Peter Welch said Tuesday’s result showed that Maine Democrats were “fully behind” Platner, even with his baggage. 

“He’s got a lot of controversies, but that’s been out there,” Welch said. “The Democratic voters in Maine are fully aware of it, and they gave him a very solid Democratic victory in the primary.”

Adam Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said in a statement Tuesday that Platner’s primary victory showed that voters “want to elect shake-up-the-system outsiders.”

“Tonight should be a wake-up call for a Democratic establishment that has spent too long underestimating the appeal of economic populism and outsider politics,” he said. “Platner’s November victory will set the Democratic Party on a bolder economic-populist course, regaining the trust of voters who corporate and establishment Democrats have lost.”

Before she dropped out of the race, Mills, who had the backing of Senate Democratic leadership, attempted to attack Platner through ads highlighting his Reddit comments about women and his Nazi symbol tattoo. But polls showed Platner’s lead in the primary remained significant.

Now, Republicans appear ready to spend millions more than Mills did to attempt to brand Platner as unfit to serve in the Senate and help push Collins toward a sixth term. 

‘Too damaged to win?’

A National Republican Senatorial Committee memo Wednesday called Maine the “linchpin” of this year’s Senate map and said Republicans must race to define their opponent and commit resources to the state, where voters backed Kamala Harris by 7 points in 2024. 

“The political fundamentals in Maine remain challenging, and it is a fatal mistake to assume Platner is too damaged to win,” the memo said. “He is currently leading.”

While Collins has emphasized her record in the Senate, including bringing millions back to Maine and touting her position as chair of the Appropriations Committee, other Republicans have sought to paint Platner as out of touch and cast doubt on his “everyman” persona. 

An NRSC ad released Tuesday night as polls closed in Maine cast Collins as a productive senator while saying Platner “runs a hobby oyster farm whose only customer is his mother’s restaurant.”

“Susan’s gonna crush him,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Wednesday. 

Democrats, meanwhile, drew their own comparisons between the two candidates, suggesting Collins’ record wasn’t as moderate as her reputation. 

“Graham Platner is running to tackle the challenges Mainers are actually dealing with — rising costs, health care they can’t afford, and local businesses getting crushed by tariffs their senator voted to enable,” Lauren French, a spokesperson for Senate Majority PAC said in a statement. “Platner’s agenda supports working people and families, while Collins upholds Washington’s status quo.”

Federal Election Commission reports through May 20 show that Platner had outraised Collins, bringing in $16 million to her $15 million, although Collins had $10 million on hand to his $2 million. 

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would support Collins, calling her a “sane woman” and referring to Platner as a “thug.”

“She’s not my best friend, at all,” he said of Collins, while crediting her for never having missed a Senate vote, even though “sometimes she voted against me.”

National map

Unseating Collins is considered critical to Democrats’ chances of winning the Senate, where Republicans currently hold 53 seats. Democrats must flip four seats to win the chamber this fall, while defending battleground seats in states such as Georgia, Michigan and New Hampshire, among others. 

Party leaders have seen Maine as a logical starting point, given Trump’s unpopularity in the state and its Democratic lean. 

The race is expected to be expensive and hard-fought. Super PACs for both parties have already made initial reservations for the fall. Senate Leadership Fund, the GOP super PAC, reserved $42 million, while Senate Majority PAC, its Democratic counterpart, made a $24 million reservation in February. 

In a joint statement Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who chairs the caucus’s campaign arm, said Collins “has never been more vulnerable.”

“In November, Maine voters will elect Graham Platner, and we will win a Senate majority,” they said. 

Democratic leaders have also touted their Senate recruits in North Carolina, Ohio and Alaska and are newly optimistic about their chances in Iowa and Texas. Still, Trump won all those states two years ago and, with the exception of North Carolina, Democrats have in recent years struggled to win statewide contests in those states. 

That leaves Maine as vital to Democratic hopes of winning the Senate, something Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an early Platner backer who has campaigned alongside him, alluded to on Wednesday. 

“If Democrats want to win the Senate, as I’m sure they do, I think they’re going to rally around the Democratic nominee in Maine, who just won a landslide victory in the primary,” he said. 

Savannah Behrmann contributed to this report.