Politics
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SULLIVAN, Maine — At a century-old deli on the side of U.S. Route 1, Josh Winer made sandwiches Wednesday for the lunchtime crowd and fielded questions about neighbor and friend Graham Platner, whose face has been plastered across national news for days.
Winer, co-owner of The Dunbar Store in Sullivan, said the string of controversies rocking Platner’s U.S. Senate campaign haven’t changed the minds of his local supporters.
“They know who he is,” Winer said. “And he is a solid, hardworking member of this community who has always been a straight shooter.”
That loyalty is being tested, and it’s bigger than his hometown. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Democratic senators privately pressed Platner during his Washington visit about whether new allegations would emerge following the weekend revelations of sexually explicit messages sent to women early in his marriage. His wife, Amy Gertner, learned of the messages and the couple entered counseling.
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts told colleagues there is a big difference between marital issues and allegations of sexual assault. Platner denied any credible allegations of assault were coming, the newspaper reported.
“It’s not a secret I’ve had a messy, complicated life,” Platner told the senators, according to the article. “The worst of the rumors we’ve all heard are not true.”
The exchanges reflect deep anxiety among Democrats from Maine to Washington about what might still be coming before the June 9 primary for the right to face Republican Sen. Susan Collins in one of the biggest elections on the 2026 map. Both supporters and opponents of Platner have been teasing more damaging stories that could come as soon as this week.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer stood by the candidate publicly on Tuesday, though he deflected questions about the controversies. Platner then cut short his Washington trip and returned to Maine. A source familiar with the decision cited growing media presence at his family home and restaurant in Sullivan, but his house and the Hancock restaurant owned by his mother, Leslie Harlow, stood quiet with no other media spotted Wednesday afternoon.
Back in Sullivan, supporters said they were not yet rattled. Town Manager Ray Weintraub said the national spotlight on a hometown candidate has been a point of pride, even amid the turbulence. Winer, whose shop sells a sandwich named for Platner, hasn’t been shaken by what’s emerged so far but if he found out something “truly abhorrent, I might think differently.”
“All of the things that have come out about him, he has been willing to talk about and explained in a reasonable way,” he said. “I also know his wife, and she is not a woman who’s going to put up with any crap. She’s a strong, confident, smart lady.”
The sexting reports are the latest in a series of controversies that have trailed Platner since October, including a Nazi-linked tattoo he has since covered and offensive social media posts about women, Black people and rural Mainers. His campaign thrived following that stretch and grew into a movement strong enough to push Gov. Janet Mills out of the primary in April.
The Platner campaign said Wednesday that fundraising had surged since the weekend, with contributions in the four days since Saturday up 17% over the prior period. Small-dollar donations from Mainers rose 27% compared to the previous week. It also released the findings of a poll that showed Platner up 4 points on Collins, a smaller margin than recent surveys.
But some Republicans and Democrats think that Platner’s chances of beating Collins have fallen dramatically in the past week. One Republican working on the race described their job in recent days as tracking rumors about Platner, saying there are so many potential stories that people are getting the narrative threads mixed up. Platner’s campaign did not comment.
Other Democratic campaigns have tied themselves to Platner since Mills exited the race. He is endorsing a ranked-choice slate of three gubernatorial candidates and still has a Friday rally scheduled with Jackson, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-California, and 2nd Congressional District candidate Matt Dunlap.
“It feels like we’ve been watching the hurricane come up the coast and campaigns are trying to figure out whether to shelter in place or run for the hills,” a Democrat working on another campaign said.