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Democratic socialists who have enjoyed a string of recent primary triumphs in New York City and Denver want to believe that the Graham Platner political disaster in Maine is a one-off and tells us nothing about whether far-left politics will play with Americans outside of gentrified urban areas.
Senate candidate Platner’s rise in Maine, just such a place, was supposed to help answer that question. Incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate, has defied the state’s leftward drift for decades and is seeking her sixth term. In election cycle after cycle, Democrats have made her a priority target and have failed to unseat her. Any Democratic hope of retaking the GOP-led Senate in November rests on winning Maine.
Platner rose from obscurity, a Marine combat veteran in Iraq turned oysterman, straight out of central casting. His mission: reverse Democrats’ lack of appeal to white working-class voters, once a loyal Democratic constituency but now a critical part of Donald Trump’s base. But here was the real trick: Platner would use his “I’m one of you” story to convince those voters to support policies like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 5% national tax on unrealized wealth over $1 billion, Medicare for All, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and ending all military aid to Israel.
Platner looked the part but his biography proved uncooperative. It turned out his oyster farming operation looked more like a hobby than a livelihood, and his principal customer was his mother’s restaurant.
Far more problematic, several women who had dated Platner in the past disclosed a pattern of abuse that supporters for months dismissed as irrelevant and even mainstream media appeared to soft-pedal. The New York Times in early June published reporting topped by a headline that described Platner’s behavior with women as “unsettling,” a choice that looked to many like a liberal media double-standard when it came to believing women. Jenny Racicot, one of the women quoted in that story and who was unhappy with her treatment in The New York Times narrative, subsequently alleged to Politico in agonizing detail that Platner once had drunkenly raped her during their on-again, off-again relationship. Platner vehemently denied her account, but had to withdraw from the race as his political backers abandoned him one by one.
The desperation to keep Platner’s storybook campaign on track was palpable in the repeated decisions by multiple parties, including Sanders himself whose endorsement late last year gave Platner’s campaign so much momentum, to ignore or play down the red flags. After the Politico story, even Sanders had to call on Platner to step aside; he was one of the last of the parade of supporters to do so.
As Maine Democrats ponder who they will run against Collins in November, Platner’s downfall should serve as a warning to a Democratic Party that is at risk of fumbling its midterm advantages inherent in a disgruntled electorate and an unpopular president.
And we don’t mean just in the obvious ways, which include failing to properly vet neophyte candidates who are appealing to younger, more liberal primary voters fed up with their graying lawmakers in Washington, D.C.
Even before the final revelation that capsized Platner’s bid for office, there were no signs his regular-man appeal was breaking through with working-class Mainers. Recent polls showed voters without a college degree backed Collins over Platner by margins well into the double digits. College-educated respondents favored Platner by large margins. Where have we heard this story before?
Third Way, a moderate think tank, put the situation well in a Tuesday analysis assessing what happened in Maine. Noting that more than half of voters without a college degree told pollsters for The New York Times and Siena College that Platner was too far left, Third Way wrote, “There’s a reason for that. As an advocate for Sanders-style politics, he was too far left, and no amount of blue-collar cosplay was going to fix it.”
Democratic socialists keep believing that working-class voters will embrace a revolutionary, socialist reordering of America if only the right messenger can be found. And working-class voters keep offering the same answer: No. Not something we want.
Scott Stantis editorial cartoon for Wed, July 15, 2026, on democratic socialists. (Scott Stantis/For the Chicago Tribune)
We wrote recently that centrist Democrats need to find their voice in the face of the challenge from the extreme left and in the interest of giving non-ideological Americans increasingly finding themselves politically homeless a reasonable option at the ballot box. If the country is going to tackle its many problems, MAGA versus socialism can’t be the binary choice.
Democratic socialists want desperately to sweep the lessons of the failed Graham Platner experiment under the rug. Pragmatic Democrats shouldn’t let them.
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