Democrats: Falling for flawed outsiders

U.S. senatorial candidate from Maine Graham Platner speaks at a town hall at the Leavitt Theater on October 22, 2025 in Ogunquit, Maine

US senatorial candidate from Maine, Graham Platner, speaks at a town hall at the Leavitt Theater on Oct. 22, 2025, in Ogunquit

(Image credit: Sophie Park / Getty Images)

Democrats are desperate to run blunt-talking, blue-collar types in the 2026 midterms, said Carine Hajjar in The Boston Globe. “But do they really need a guy with a Nazi tattoo in their ranks?” That’s the question buzz- ing around Graham Platner’s Senate bid in Maine. A grizzled oysterman and Marine veteran, Platner, 41, burst on the scene in August vowing to defeat GOP Sen. Susan Collins, “crush the oligarchy, and fight for working people.” The Bernie Sanders–endorsed Democrat drew big crowds and social media views, and raised hopes he could draw young men and working-class whites back to the party. Then the dream crumbled. Old social media posts surfaced in which Platner used antigay slurs, called himself a “communist,” labeled all police “bastards,” and said rural white Mainers are “actually” racist and stupid. Next, it came out that he had a tattoo of the Totenkopf, the skull-and-crossbones symbol of the Nazi SS, on his chest. Platner, a military history buff, claimed he didn’t know that history, and last week had the tattoo inked over with a Celtic knot. Maybe he’s telling the truth, but “does the Left really want to stand by a guy with so much baggage?”

“I’m willing to look past the ugly Reddit posts and the tattoo,” said Tyler Austin Harper in The Atlantic. Today he admits to writing a lot of “indefensible” and “dumb shit” online and to feeling “full of rage” after serving four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. As for the tattoo, he said he got it while drunk on shore leave in Croatia in 2007 because “it looked cool.” Having been raised by a combat veteran, “I know how the psychological aftershocks of war can linger” and think Platner is deserving of our “grace.” A lot of Mainers feel the same way, said Nia-Malika Henderson in Bloomberg. Right now, he’s trailing his biggest Democratic rival, Gov. Janet Mills, in the polls by only five points. Platner’s loyal supporters seem to want their own Trump, a Democrat who’s “the antithesis of the kind of spit-shined, hothouse” candidate favored by the establishment.

Platner’s campaign is shedding staff and could implode in the coming weeks, said Alex Shephard in The New Republic. But that doesn’t mean Democrats should give up on charismatic newcomers. Platner excited voters because he seemed like the kind of candidate Democrats need right now: “an authentic person with a knack for communicating a populist message.” He turned out to be “a disaster,” as will many other novice candidates who excite voters. But sometimes, voters will fall in love with “inexperienced candidates—like, I don’t know, Barack Obama—who really do have what it takes.”