Susan Collins won her uncontested Republican primary Tuesday while Democrats in Maine nominated Graham Platner, a candidate whose personal scandals have left members of his own party openly struggling to defend him heading into a race that could decide Senate control.
Collins, first elected in 1996, ran unopposed for the Republican nomination as she pursues a sixth Senate term. No Republican challenger emerged, a reflection of her standing in Maine and her position as the senior Republican woman in the Senate. Across the ballot, Democrat Graham Platner won his contested primary with roughly 74 percent of the vote, according to results reported by CBS News and the Bangor Daily News, dispatching Gov. Janet Mills, who remained on the ballot despite suspending her campaign in the spring. The general election matchup is now set: Collins versus Platner in November, in one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country.
The challenge for Democrats is the candidate their voters just chose. The Wall Street Journal reported that Platner sent sexually explicit text messages to multiple women while married. The New York Times reported that a former girlfriend said he twisted her arm during an argument and locked her in a room, and that others described him as volatile. Old Reddit posts surfaced by journalists showed him mocking a soldier wounded in a Taliban ambush and making racist and victim-blaming remarks. A tattoo on his chest depicting a skull-and-crossbones linked to Nazi iconography, known as the totenkopf, drew condemnation from the Anti-Defamation League. Platner said he had not known the symbol's history and had it covered before his campaign gained momentum.
The Democratic reaction ranged from diplomatic distance to outright disgust. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania put it most bluntly, telling reporters: "You know, candidates have baggage. In his case, he is baggage that incidentally might be a candidate," according to Fox News. Fetterman later called him a "creep," CNN reported. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told CNN the allegations were "hard to stomach" but framed the race as a binary choice between Platner and Collins. Sen. Bernie Sanders, asked directly about the scandals, declined to engage them, telling CBS News "there are no saints in the United States Senate."
The stakes are high enough that Democratic leaders have stayed committed despite their reservations. Maine's Senate seat is rated a toss-up by major election forecasters and sits at the center of Democrats' hopes of winning back the Senate majority in the midterms. Collins is the only Republican senator from a state President Trump lost in 2024, which makes her seat both a symbolic and a practical target. A UMass Lowell poll conducted before the sexting revelations became public showed Platner leading Collins 48 to 43 percent among likely voters. Whether the scandals will close that gap is now a defining question of the race.
Collins has made her case to voters on seniority and concrete results. Her office says she secured more than $1.5 billion in directed federal spending for nearly 700 Maine projects over five years, according to NPR, a record she has emphasized throughout the campaign. Running an incumbent's race against a first-time candidate with a documented history of controversies is a position most senators would choose.
Platner has signaled he is going nowhere. Under Maine law, he would need to voluntarily withdraw by July 13 for the party to substitute a new nominee. He has refused. Rep. Ro Khanna of California held a rally with him after Tuesday's primary, providing a measure of progressive credibility, and the national Democratic infrastructure has stayed committed to the race even as some party voices say publicly that a different nominee would give them a better chance.
That tension, between wanting the seat and being stuck with the nominee they have, will define the Democratic campaign in Maine through November. Collins enters the general election with a clear record to run on, a fractured opponent, and a party on the other side that has already started distancing itself from the top of its own ticket.
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