Polls are having a hard time capturing the Platner effect.
◉ Two polls released at the end of last week aimed to show different things. Senate Republicans released a memo finding Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platnerwell ahead of Gov. Janet Mills, while another poll of likely Maine primary voters showed Mills leading the race.
◉ Both of these surveys were an attempt to measure the race after Platner’s bad week that followed disclosures about his old, offensive Reddit posts and his chest tattoo of a Nazi symbol that he got covered. Platner was way ahead of Mills in a University of New Hampshire poll taken in the middle of those events.
◉ But these new surveys have some flaws. For one, the Republican poll seems to have branded Platner’s tattoo an “anti-Israel” one, something that another candidate, Jordan Wood, termed as “bullshit.” That wording could have affected the response to the question.
◉ The other poll came from SoCal Data, which pegged Mills at a 5-point lead over Platner that ballooned to 30 points when Maine voters were informed that Platner had “was recently revealed to have a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol.” Read the crosstabs from the survey.
◉ Even SoCal acknowledges polling that question in isolation could have the effect of pushing voters toward Mills. But it does point out the risks of running an undefined candidate whom voters are learning about in real time, matching the argument that Mills’ most ardent supporters are making.
◉ But Platner is energizing parts of the Democratic base in ways that I haven’t seen anyone do before in Maine. I was at a Portland bar yesterday overhearing organic conversations about the candidate and how he was weathering the storm. However, Portland doesn’t necessarily the state’s primary base.
◉ For now, the Platner campaign is rolling along. Lots of young voters will be at his Sunday rally at Portland’s State Theater to oppose Question 1, the voter ID proposal on the Nov. 4 ballot, which features musical performances by the Ballroom Thieves and Griffin William Sherry.