Graham Platner has been dubbed Maine's Mamdani by some because his views, as revealed by his deleted Reddit messages, suggest he is genuine socialist. Platner's campaign took off quickly as a kind of insurgent, blue-collar challenge to Senator Susan Collins, but his rise has been sidetracked by those deleted messages along with a mini-scandal about a Nazi tattoo he'd had for decades. A poll released this week suggests Platner may be too damaged to topple Collins.
The survey, conducted on behalf of the Democratic group EMILYs List and obtained by POLITICO, finds that most voters wouldn’t support Platner over Republican Sen. Susan Collins after learning of his past social media posts in which he called himself a communist, denigrated the police and characterized white people in rural Maine as “stupid” and “racist.”
When voters are read direct quotes from Platner’s since-deleted Reddit posts, he loses to Collins by double digits. And in a test of potential campaign messaging, a positive narrative about Platner that includes his life story as a veteran and oyster farmer and his apology for the posts fails to make up the gap.
Before testing a matchup between Platner and Collins, the poll summarizes pro-Platner messaging — including his military service and his promise to “fight the billionaire class” and make politics work “for regular people” — along with likely Republican attacks about the communist label and his comments about police. With that information, Collins leads Platner 51 percent to 42 percent.
That gap grew to 19 points after voters were provided more quotes from Platner’s Reddit posts. And when voters were provided with a lengthy apology response, he only narrowed the gap by 5 points.
I think most readers already know this but EMILY's List is a pro-abortion group that seeks to elect Democratic women. So in this case they aren't supporting Platner but his rival in the primary, Janet Mills, who is the establishment candidate.
The poll may be intended to sink Platner but the numbers are bad enough that they suggest a few points here or there wouldn't matter. The same poll apparently did not offer a similar match up featuring Mills vs. Collins. I'm wondering if they polled that too and decided not to release it?
In any case, the results suggest Platner has no path to win. If his Reddit messages aren't mentioned he loses by 9, if they are mentioned he loses by 19. I think it's safe to say that Sen. Collins will make sure every voter knows about those messages. That only leaves Platner one way out, which is to apologize and start over with voters. But even in that case he loses by 14 points.
And it's worth noting that Platner's PR problems still aren't over. This week a Substack site revealed that he has been paying his wfie (he married last year) a salary on his campaign staff. There is some indication that he is paying her instead of accepting money himself so as not to mess up his VA disability payments.
Graham Platner’s Maine Senate campaign is paying his wife a biweekly salary, according to a recent filing with the Federal Election Commission.
On September 15, Graham For Maine paid Amy Gertner $1799.81. Two weeks later, the campaign paid her $1799.82, labeling the transactions “salary” on a list of itemized disbursements...
The staffer said the campaign decided to pay Gertner a salary for a few reasons.
“One, the optics of a candidate drawing a salary from the campaign committee isn’t great, though I don’t think your family getting paid from the campaign committee is great either,” the former staffer said. “Two, if Graham drew a salary from the campaign, his disability status and his disability payments would be put at risk.”
Platner apparently gets $4800 a month in VA disability payments. I recently wrote about VA disability payments. An investigation by the Washington Post suggested the program was rife with fraud. Many vets are claiming payments for multiple injury claims at once (the average is seven per claimant) including for things like hair loss, jock itch, toenail fungus, eczema, acne and sleep apnea. It does make me wonder what disability claims Platner is trying to protect.
Finally, the recent chaos in his campaign which has led to several staffers quitting has apparently put him behind on his paperwork.
Graham Platner’s U.S. Senate campaign failed to file his personal financial disclosure with the Secretary of the Senate, a requirement under the Ethics in Government Act that must be completed within 30 days of launching a campaign.
Platner filed his Statement of Candidacy on August 18, setting a deadline of September 17 for submitting the disclosure. The campaign is now eight weeks overdue in complying. The public online database maintained by the Secretary of the Senate shows no filings from Platner...
Campaign treasurer Victoria Perrone, responsible for compliance oversight, resigned after just two weeks on the job last month. Three days later, Platner’s director of finance also stepped down. They were the third and fourth senior staffers to quit during the final two weeks of October.
It's not going well. The rats have been leaving the sinking ship but so far Platner has vowed to fight on. We'll see how long he can hang on. If the polling for his candidacy is really that bad, the influx of money to fund his campaign has probably also slowed considerably. He can continue to talk tough but the shine may already have come off this particular novelty.
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