Platner's MAGA Gambit: The Scandals That Used To End Campaigns Aren't Sticking

By Caroline McCaughey, NH Journal

Graham Platner wants you to believe Trump voters and working-class independents will vote for him.

With his gruff voice, beard, and sweatshirts-instead-of-suits, Mr. Platner cuts the figure of a working-class Mainer. I’m sure you’ve also heard he’s an oyster farmer and a veteran, plucked from the sea to run for U.S. Senate. Progressive Democrats think they’ve found the ideal candidate — Nazi tattoo and Reddit posts notwithstanding — to lure back working-class voters who fled the party during the Trump years.

“I didn’t vote for Trump, but I very much understand why people did,” Mr. Platner says in a 12-minute video he posted to X with a three-time Trump voter now backing him. “Everybody down here feels like they’re getting robbed, and Trump came along and told us that, one, you are getting robbed.”

At Bentley’s Saloon, a biker bar in Arundel with bras hanging from the rafters and at least 40 motorcycles parked outside, this shared message — that “the system is rigged” — resonated. I met two Trump voters there who said they’re backing Mr. Platner, and more than a handful who said they don’t like the choices. I also met plenty of Trump voters who said they’d never vote blue.

“The American people are sick and tired of being yanked around and jerked around by people who say they’re going to do something and nobody does anything,” a 60-year-old nursing home maintenance man, Charles Jones, told me.

Mr. Jones worked 30 years as a commercial fisherman, voted for Barack Obama and then Mr. Trump, and says he’s open to voting for Mr. Platner. “I am the average working man in this country,” he said.

A retired factory worker at the bar told me he’s backing Mr. Platner, though it took prodding for him to admit he voted for Mr. Trump. “Only because I thought he did a really good job the first time,” he said, declining to give his name for print. On Mr. Platner, he echoed Mr. Trump’s expression, “What do you have to lose?”

I got a similar response when I spoke to a Trump voter in York who works in sales. He said he likes Mr. Platner’s “populist message” and support for Medicare for All, a sign of how much Mr. Trump reshaped the GOP base. “I don’t like that he’s running as a Democrat,” he said of Mr. Platner, “but I don’t like the gerontocracy more,” referring to Susan Collins’ 73 years of age.

In the last week, I’ve spoken with more than two dozen Mainers, all of whom knew about Mr. Platner’s covered-up Totenkopf tattoo, though they made wisecracks about it more than expressing concern. They also knew about Mr. Platner’s Reddit posts questioning why Black people don’t tip and whether women should “take some responsibility” to avoid sexual assault, but these don’t appear as damaging as media coverage would suggest.

“All lobstermen are drug addicted? Well, a lot of them are,” a police officer from Central Maine told me, referring to one of Mr. Platner’s posts.

While mainstream Democrats who were backing Gov. Mills in the primary may be loath to vote for Mr. Platner, Mr. Trump has primed MAGA voters to overlook personal foibles and what were previously considered campaign-killing remarks. Outrage is high online, but to normies on the ground — many who said they get their news “here and there” on social media — Mr. Platner’s “sh**posting” is like Mr. Trump’s “locker room talk.”

The officer, who voted for Mr. Trump and is unsure how he’ll vote in November, said he takes opposition research and out-of-context quotes with skepticism now, since anything can be clipped and anyone who runs for office and is under the age of 45 is going to have a trail online. A Fox News report Monday that Mr. Platner reminisced on Reddit about masturbating in porta-potties while serving will probably only win him some veteran votes.

More than $78 million has already been spent on this race, which is expected to shatter records in the state. At stake is control of the U.S. Senate. Liberals I’ve spoken to often dismiss Mr. Platner’s Reddit posts and tattoo by saying Mr. Trump is worse, mentioning the Access Hollywood tape, sexual assault allegations, or “fascism.” A retired contractor I met at the Navy Yard Bar & Billiards in Kittery told me he voted all Democrat in 2020 except for Ms. Collins, but Mr. Trump needs to be stopped, so he’ll be voting for Mr. Platner this time.

The more opposition research that comes out about Mr. Platner, the more likely some Democrats will cast their ballots for the old steady hand. Ms. Collins’ age came up in almost every conversation I had. She has held her seat for 30 years largely because Democrats split their tickets to vote for her. She was polling 5 points behind on Election Day in 2020 and won by 9 percent.

To win then, Mr. Platner will need independents, the largest share of the Maine electorate, and at least some MAGA voters. This will be an uphill fight. Mr. Platner may have Trumpian magnetism and own AR-15s, but at Bentley’s, accusations that he may be cosplaying his working-class identity dominated the conversation. His grandfather was a famous architect, and his lawyer father loaned him $200,000 to buy a house.

Mr. Trump appealed to working-class voters as a billionaire. Several people told me the oysterman plucked from obscurity didn’t pass the smell test. Look for authenticity to be a main line of attack against Mr. Platner.

“He’s just a rich kid trying to play working man,” a logger from Arundel, Tregg Cliche, told me. “We’re all f***ing Republicans anyway. We’re never switching.”

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.