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President Donald Trump has weighed in on the outcome of the Maine Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.
When asked by reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday whether he supports Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, Trump called her a “sane person,” though acknowledging the tension between them after her occasional votes against him.
Then he turned his attention to Graham Platner, whom Democrats nominated to be their champion in this November’s U.S. Senate race. Platner secured about 72% of the vote in the three-way race featuring term-limited Gov. Janet Mills and David Costello.
“But this guy is a thug. He’s a fake. He’s a fake thug. He’s a phony,” Trump said of the Sullivan oyster farmer.
Platner’s win Tuesday came despite a barrage of negative press since last fall, when his deleted posts on the website Reddit became public, including inflammatory statements about rural white Americans, Black people and women.
Then it came out that Platner had a chest tattoo of a skull over crossbones resembling a symbol adopted by the Nazi SS during World War II.
Platner denied knowing the meaning of the tattoo, which he got in 2007 while deployed abroad with the U.S. Marines. He has since had it covered.
Despite that, support for Platner hasn’t wavered and he led in numerous polls ahead of Tuesday’s primary.
His chances for clinching the nomination seemed at risk last week when the Wall Street Journal reported that he had exchanged sexually explicit texts with other women early in his marriage to Amy Gertner, who disclosed those messages to his campaign last summer, and then a New York Times story wherein his ex-girlfriends described volatile and toxic behavior, including instances of physical intimidation.
On the campaign trail, Platner has cast his story as one of redemption and a struggle to overcome post-traumatic stress disorder, assuring supporters that his past behavior doesn’t reflect who he is today.
Nonetheless, Democrats have worried that Platner’s baggage could turn him into an albatross for the party during the midterms, and Mills proclaimed earlier this year that Republicans would make “mincemeat” of Platner.
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It will be an uphill battle for Democrats to unseat Collins, who officially announced her historic bid for a sixth term in February. While recent polls have given Platner a lead over Maine’s senior senator, the Republican has handily beaten back challengers, including in 2020 when she defied polls and expectations to secure a fifth term in the Senate. But Collins, who has been ranked the country’s most bipartisan senator, has seen her popularity slump since Republican Trump’s first term in the White House.
Although Trump has recently sunk the careers of other senators who have crossed him, his statements Wednesday suggest he is putting aside his past hostility to Collins as the Republican Party tries to maintain its narrow majorities in the U.S. House and Senate.
If Collins is successful in winning a sixth term, she would be Maine’s longest-serving U.S. senator.