... he referred to himself as a communist, seemed to make light of sexual assault in the military, offered racially insensitive comments about Black patrons’ tipping habits, and called “all” police officers “bastards.”This was followed by the revelation that Platner had an old tattoo of a death's head, an image linked to the Nazis, the significance of which he claimed he didn't understand until recently. (Headline of a Wall Street Journal editorial: "Oops, I’ve Had a Nazi Tattoo for 18 Years.")
... He quickly put out a direct-to-camera apology that blamed post-war PTSD for “some of the worst comments I made, the things that I think are least defensible, that I wouldn’t even try to defend.”
All this happened around the time Maine's governor, Janet Mills, entered the race. Mills will be 78 years old in a couple of months, and she was recruited for the race by Chuck Schumer, but she has stood up to Donald Trump. Before the Platner scandal broke, Mills was beating Collins in polling. (Platner was tied with Collins.) And there are other Democratic candidates, including Jordan Wood, a well-funded former chief of staff to ex-congresswoman Katie Porter of California.
But I think we need to wait and see on Platner. I say for that for two reasons. One is the polling, at least among Maine Democrats:
The survey ran from 10/16 - 10/21. The Reddit text story ran on 10/16, so Maine Dems were cool with those (or at least accepted his apology). The Nazi tattoo story broke on 10/21, the last day of the survey. So the next poll will give an indication of whether they give a shit about that.
— Charles Ghoul-ba ✡️ (@charlesgaba.com) October 23, 2025 at 10:22 AM
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I've seen insurgent candidates go from nowhere to front-runner, but not this fast. Barack Obama became a contender quickly, but it took a while before he led the 2008 Democratic presidential race. And it took months for Zohran Mamdani to gain the lead in the New York mayoral contest.
To me it's obvious why Platner is doing as well as he is. It's not just the full-throated rejection of economics as usual. It's Platner's skill at delivering that message. I keep trying to tell people that, in an era when people barely read, even online, Democrats need compelling speakers. I believe we're in this Trump nightmare largely because Joe Biden couldn't talk -- couldn't speak the words that would persuade us that he understood our struggles and was working to make our lives better.
Platner is a very, very good speaker -- I can't think of a white male Democrat anywhere who's better (though that's a low bar to clear). Which leads to the second reason I think he still has a shot: I watched this video and it's compelling. I think he makes a strong a case as he possibly can for why we shouldn't abandon him.
Platner has had the tattoo re-inked -- it's now a Celtic knot and a dog's head. He claims he was vetted as both a soldier and a State Department contractor after getting the original tattoo and it was not treated as a red flag. (I'll remind you that Pete Hegseth was prevented from serving at Joe Biden's inaugural as a National Guardsmen because his "Deus Vult" tattoo was seen as possible evidence of political extremism.) Platner seems contrite, although, obviously, he's expressing contrition because he got caught.
Nevertheless, he's good at this. Voters now might prefer a flawed person who can talk this way to a cautious candidate who doesn't leave much of an impact.
Platner is staying in the race, and I think we just have to sit back and watch this unfold. Will the state's Democrats abandon him? Will more scandals emerge? And while his 58%-24% lead is substantial, that's a primary poll -- the general election wasn't polled.
After this primary, Democrats in Maine and nationwide should respect the outcome and pull together afterward. But it probably won't be that simple. It's not just that Platner might win and then be vulnerable to attacks on his past. It's that, because he's a foe of economics as usual, it's easy to imagine Platner getting the Mamdani treatment: billionaire Democratic donors lining up against him and Establishment Democratic officeholders withholding their endorsements -- possibly including Mills herself.
And it's equally easy to imagine Mills winning the primary and the general election being a repeat of the 2016 presidential election, with disaffected progressives refusing to rally around an older woman who's an eastablishmentarian. (Would Platner withhold an endorsement from Mills? He might.)
I've expressed some of these thoughts on Bluesky and I've been told I'm a Nazi enabler. "So you think Nazi candidates are fine if they are eloquent. Interesting take," says one critic.
But Platner isn't a Nazi candidate. A Nazi is a person who has Nazi ideas. Platner has -- had -- a Nazi tattoo. He's never expressed Nazi ideas.
Platner has had bigoted ideas. I don't know if he's sincerely past them. But he doesn't sound like a bigot now. This is from a Vanity Fair report on a town hall he held in Ogunquit, Maine:
“I went from being a communist on Thursday to a Nazi on Monday,” Platner said, to laughter. “If anybody’s done any of the reading, that’s a rather hard political trajectory to navigate.” He then addressed the tattoo more seriously, and acknowledged there are things in his past he isn’t proud of. “And now,” he said, “I would like to get back to talking about wealth inequality and Medicare for all.”I've been told a few times that Platner, if he wins, will inevitably tack right, just like John Fetterman. Why assume that's inevitable? Why generalize from a sample set of one?
Platner is a powerful, straightforward speaker, preaching about a future in which tax dollars go to community support rather than “funding somebody else’s genocide,” and repeatedly emphasizing the importance of organizing....
He spoke about understanding why people voted for Trump: “People aren’t stupid. They might be misinformed, they might be propagandized, but they’re not stupid. They understand that they’re getting screwed and we need to tell ‘em that they are getting screwed, but they’re not being screwed by immigrants. They’re not being screwed by trans kids. They’re being screwed by the same people that have been screwing us the entire time, and that is this class that is the upper echelons, the rich, the ultra powerful, the corporate interests.”
The primary is next summer. Let's allow it to play out -- and if you think you can find a candidate who can win this thing who isn't Platner or Mills, go for it. I'm in a city where the ability to generate grassroots enthusiasm rewrote an electoral script in which a mayoral race was supposed to lead to a vile man's coronation. That's why I'm reluctant to write off Platner, or assume that someone else can simply galvanize voters the way he and Mamdani have. But whatever happens, we need to pull together and beat Collins -- and it's disturbingly easy to imagine how Democratic infighting could help her pull off a come-from-behind win.
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