Politics

Some Maine Democrats are wavering on Graham Platner

Published

4 months ago

June 9, 2026

PORTLAND, Maine — Darcy Halvorsen, 59, had already cast her ballot early for Graham Platner in Maine’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary when she read news of sexual text messages the oysterman had sent while married to a woman who wasn’t his wife.

Halvorsen, who described herself as a Platner skeptic-turned-fan, is back to being a skeptic. As she attended a town hall of his at the Elks Lodge in Portland on Sunday — at least her eighth Platner event since last fall — she was regretting the vote.

“I’m feeling very let down, disappointed,” she said. “Because I don’t think it was handled well. I don’t think he took responsibility for it.”

Platner’s continued drumbeat of scandals has divided both Democratic Party leaders and voters as they stare down the must-win Senate race. Defeating Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November is crucial to the party’s plans to take back control of the upper chamber and provide a check on President Donald Trump. But even as Platner’s staunch supporters stick with him, his political baggage is threatening to sink him with some Democratic and independent voters heading into the general election, according to interviews with nearly two dozen Maine voters.

Several Democratic voters were hesitant to weigh in on the Senate race, saying they felt Platner’s candidacy was all but certain at this point and sharing their opinion on him was likely to be met with backlash. Others who were planning to vote Democratic in November are now toying with backing Collins or sitting out the Senate race entirely — a challenge for the likely nominee and his party.

Peter and Kelly Dufour were manning the grill at a Get-Out-the-Vote event for gubernatorial candidate Hannah Pingree in Portland on Saturday and excited about the former Democratic state House speaker’s candidacy for governor. Asked about the Senate race, Kelly put her head in her hands.

The pair were looking to learn more about David Costello, who was Democratic Senate nominee in 2024 and is running in the primary again this year — the only Democrat candidate on the ballot besides Platner and Gov. Janet Mills, who suspended her campaign in April.

Peter said he was “disappointed” by Collins’ votes in the past few years, particularly to confirm judges, but he’s “torn” over giving up her prime seat on the Senate Appropriations Committee for Platner.

“I want someone of good moral character to be my senator,” he said, describing himself as 50-50 on the race right now.

Kelly said she wasn’t sure if she was 50-50 anymore in light of the latest Platner news.

With Platner, she said, “it just seems like one thing after another.”

Platner and his allies have attributed his past poor conduct to his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and alcohol use after leaving the military. He has said he found community after moving back to Maine and asked voters to judge him on who he is now. But some Maine voters are still skeptical of his story of redemption.

Kathy Bonk, a Brooksville resident and president of the Maine chapter of the National Organization of Women, plans to vote for Mills in Tuesday’s primary, though she expects Platner to prevail.

“There’s been a lot of press coverage about, ‘Well, we’ll let Maine voters decide.’ The Maine Democratic voters are going to decide the primary, but then you put that question to all Maine voters in the general,” she said. “I just think there’s a number of people that after everything that’s come out on Platner just can’t bring themselves to vote for Platner.”

Some Democrats are hoping that a poor showing from Platner in Tuesday’s primary would help them convince him to step aside and allow the state party to replace him with another candidate. But the idea seemed fairly ludicrous to most voters in Maine, given not only Platner’s record of surviving scandals but also his strong base of supporters — many of whom see his controversies as outside attacks on his movement that have only hardened their resolve for him.

“Mainers don’t want to see one of their own cut down at the knees,” said Constantine Dixon, a 36-year-old from Portland who attended the Sunday town hall for Platner.

Platner has inspired many Maine voters in a way few other candidates have in the state’s recent political history, drawing massive crowds like few in the state have seen and going from an unknown oysterman to consistently leading the sitting governor in primary polls. Many of his backers brush off his recent controversies as less important than the issues he is running on: universal health care, getting money out of politics, and making the state affordable for working people.

He has maintained support from lawmakers like Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) rallied with him in Bar Harbor on Friday, and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), in his first public display of support, hosted a virtual fundraiser for him on Sunday.

“Since this campaign launched, we have been and remain deeply humbled by the support and loyalty of this movement,” Ben Chin, Platner’s campaign manager, said in a statement. “Mainers know Graham, they understand what he stands for, and they believe in what this campaign is fighting for. Lifting people up and fighting for working Mainers has been and always will be our priority.”

Days after reports of the extramarital sexting, the New York Times published accounts of several of Platner’s ex-girlfriends who recalled disturbing patterns of behavior. One woman alleged that he had grabbed her in ways that left marks and once locked her in a room.

Platner’s campaign acknowledged he sent sexual text messages to other women while married, but had already addressed the issue with his wife. He admitted to being a “bad boyfriend” in past relationships but said he had never been violent.

At the town hall in Portland on Sunday, Platner was received enthusiastically by hundreds of supporters. Some attendees said they showed up specifically to indicate their support for him after a difficult week.

Charlotte Brown, an unenrolled voter, said she had supported Collins until the senator’s vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. In Platner, she finally found a politician who “represented us.”

“We wanted to come to stand up for him with all the attacks,” she said. “We wanted him to know that we have his back.”

Platner’s supporters, which include many older women who make up the core of the Democratic Party in Maine, largely don’t condone his past behavior — but they believe in his personal growth.

“What happened in his personal life was a long time ago,” said Janet Miles, an Air Force veteran attending an event for Pingree over the weekend. “People change. Do I approve of the things he did? Definitely not. If he did all those things a week ago, that would be different.”

“I was really upset when I heard his comments about women drinking and rape,” said Cathy Walter, a retiree from Gorham, Maine, referencing Platner’s Reddit history that was uncovered last fall. In posts more than a decade ago, Platner had written that sexual assault victims should take responsibility and avoid alcohol so as not to end up in a “compromising situation.”

But Walter appreciated how Platner owned up to his past conduct and said what happened “does not disqualify him.” She’s taking cues from national leaders on whether he can still beat Collins in November.

“I’m watching, what is Bernie Sanders saying? What is Elizabeth Warren saying?” Walter said. “They would be pulling their support if he couldn’t get elected.”

Platner’s political rise has captivated the state since his campaign launch last August. News reports about his old social media posts and a tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol did not meaningfully slow his momentum. Mills, who was recruited for the race by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, ended up suspending her campaign at the end of April, as Platner continued to lead her in fundraising and public polls.

Mills has not endorsed Platner, and some of his skeptics are planning to vote for her in the primary. The governor hasn’t publicly remarked on the race other than reminding a Maine Trust for Local News columnist a week ago that she remains on the ballot.

Mills campaign signs still dotted Portland neighborhoods this weekend. In Portland’s Back Bay, one sign was improvisationally stapled to a wooden post. Written by hand in blue marker was a reminder for passersby: “She’s still in! Vote!”

National Republicans have been gearing up for a general election battle against Platner for months, with the pro-Collins super PAC Pine Tree Results launching ads last month that focused on Platner’s Reddit comments and tattoo. In the aftermath of the recent controversies, Collins told reporters in Maine on Friday that Platner had “a lot of questions to answer.”

Halvorsen, the former Platner fan who was frustrated with his recent scandals, said she could not remember seeing Maine Democrats so at odds over something — and she recalled many contested primaries in the state. On social media, she said, she’d faced attacks for being a Platner skeptic, attacks for being a fan, and now attacks for being ambivalent about him.

“Trump wants us to be divided,” she said. “And that’s what’s happening in Maine.”

Politics

Poll: A crack is emerging in Trump’s coalition over deportations

Published

6 hours ago

September 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign is running into resistance within his own voter coalition, as more and more Republican candidates publicly break with him ahead of the November election.

New results from The POLITICO Poll help explain why: Non-MAGA Trump voters are more than twice as likely as self-identified MAGA Trump voters to say his mass deportation campaign is too aggressive, 31% to 14%. While roughly similar shares of both groups believe Trump’s campaign is about right, the MAGA base wants him to go even further: 36% of MAGA Trump voters say his campaign is not aggressive enough, compared with 23% of non-MAGA Trump voters.

Meanwhile, support across Trump’s entire voter coalition falls when it comes to deporting people beyond the most violent offenders, such as those with minor criminal offenses or who have been living in the U.S. for years without legal status.

The new survey, conducted by London-based Public First, reveals how Trump’s immigration agenda — which has long been one of his signature political issues and a reliable GOP rallying point — has divided the very coalition that helped power his two presidential wins. The president’s MAGA loyalists are still more inclined than other Trump voters to support a tougher immigration posture, but there are clear limits to how far voters want the administration to go.

Those intraparty tensions burst into public view this month, when Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) released a campaign ad pushing back against Trump’s deportation agenda, saying some of his efforts “have gone too far” and that Hispanic voters who supported him in 2024 “feel betrayed.” It was a remarkable break from a sitting GOP lawmaker over one of the president’s defining policies, as Democrats have locked in on Florida’s 27th District as a prime target in their bid to flip the House.

Salazar’s public rift with Trump exemplifies the fears Republicans had been privately warning about for months: that the president’s immigration enforcement — marked last year by high-profile, flashy raids that rippled through communities — was alienating moderate Republicans, independents, young voters and Latinos who support border security and immigration enforcement in theory but dislike how it is being carried out.

And as the party stares down a difficult midterm landscape, including in districts and states Trump won in 2024, other GOP candidates followed Salazar’s lead, increasingly putting distance between themselves and the administration on key issues like immigration — despite having voted last year to approve billions of dollars for border security and immigration enforcement. On Wednesday, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), whose race has tightened against Democrat Adam Hamilton, also softened his stance on Immigration and Customs Enforcement as raids in southwest Kansas prompt temporary business closures and schools.

“When ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement. Our sheriffs and police know these communities better than anyone, and working together keeps officers and residents safe,” he wrote on social media, adding that he’s been in direct contact with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

The Blue Light News Poll finds most Americans — including majorities of both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters — believe people convicted of serious violent or sexual offenses should be prioritized for deportation, underscoring broad agreement on a more targeted approach to enforcement.

The survey also finds that few people — including among both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters — prioritized targeting other groups for deportations. Less than a quarter of each group say people convicted of minor criminal offenses should be prioritized. Support falls further when voters are asked about prioritizing people who have lived in the U.S. for several years without legal status or people with dependent children in the U.S.

“A lot of it has to do with how you talk about it. They don’t want amnesty for people who have broken the law. They want everybody to do it the right way,” said a person close to the White House granted anonymity to discuss how Republicans are viewing the issue. “They understand that some people might be law-abiding, hard working.”

White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said Blue Light News is “skewing data to paint a false narrative.”

“The American people sent President Trump back to the White House to stop the invasion of our country and deport the millions of illegal aliens Biden and Democrats allowed into the country. The president is delivering on his promises,” she said.

Days after releasing the ad, Salazar said she had a “fantastic conversation” with Trump and urged him to protect the political “fortune” he had brought to the Republican Party on immigration. She also told CBS last weekend that Trump and the average American understand “the between the narco and the nanny and the gangster and the gardener.”

She said the administration should distinguish between criminals and unauthorized immigrants working in crucial industries such as agriculture, construction, hospitality and health care.

That distinction is also reflected in The Blue Light News Poll. Both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters are open to maintaining or increasing the number of people coming into the U.S. to work in sectors facing labor shortages, such as health care or agriculture. Sixty-five percent of MAGA Trump voters and 69% non-MAGA Trump voters say they want to see about the same number — or more — people coming to the U.S. to work in those sectors facing labor shortages.

“Trump 2.0 that took over in January 2025 completely misread what voters were telling him and Joe Biden during 2024, which was that they wanted to see more order and security over the U.S.-Mexico border,” said Matt Barreto, who conducted polling for former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign. “Instead, what Trump told Americans was, ‘Now I’m going to go hunt down immigrants who are just working and contributing to America.’ And there was extremely limited support for that.”

Past POLITICO polling on immigration has shown that the Trump administration has been unable to reverse the damage with voters on the issue. Last fall, battleground Republicans were already expressing concern about the administration’s immigration tactics. Those concerns intensified in the months that followed, while negative voter sentiment hardened by April after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

The Trump administration, in the wake of bipartisan outrage, softened its rhetoric and abandoned flashy raids that often devolved into clashes with protesters. The president also installed Mullin, who moved quickly to repair relationships on Capitol Hill and keep the Department of Homeland Security out of the headlines.

But Mullin is also facing pressure from MAGA critics and immigration hardliners who think he’s not committed to the president’s vow to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants. In an effort to shore up his support with that contingent, top administration accounts, including Mullin’s, have ramped up posts about ICE, arrests statistics and tough talk about the administration’s immigration enforcement agenda.

Politics

Gina Hinojosa wants to make Texas a test case for Democrats’ future

Published

16 hours ago

September 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Gina Hinojosa wants to make Texas a test case for Democrats’ future

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Politics

Trump eyes an October campaign rally — in Alabama

Published

21 hours ago

September 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump is tentatively set to visit Alabama for a political rally next week, a curious move in a deep-red state as his party fights for control of Congress in several battlegrounds.

The event is penciled in for Oct. 2 in Mobile, but the plans have not yet been finalized and are subject to change, according to two people with direct knowledge of the preparations who were granted anonymity to disclose private planning.

An October rally in Alabama would be a somewhat confounding decision for the president. The GOP has found itself having to play defense in their own territory recently, with Democratic candidates are seriously competing for Senate seats in normally red states like Alaska and Texas. But Alabama has not been considered a state where Democrats have any real shot at winning any statewide office.

Spokespeople for the White House and Republican National Committee did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The rally could help shore up support for state Rep. Rhett Marques, who is locked in a somewhat competitive race with Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures. Marques is still seen to have the advantage after the Supreme Court allowed the state to use a House map that reconfigured Figures’ majority-Black district earlier this year. Mobile, though, is outside of that district.

Marques’ campaign and Figures’ campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

A foray into Alabama would not be the first time that the president has tried to shore up support in a solidly Republican state this cycle — he rallied last month in South Carolina for Sen. Darline Graham during her primary runoff — but as the general election season has begun he has also started to visit battleground states. Last week, he rallied alongside GOP Senate nominee Michael Whatley in North Carolina.

Trump’s potential campaign visit would follow Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy’s announcement last week that the Trump administration has granted a $2.5 billion loan to the Alabama Toll Road, Bridge, and Tunnel Authority. That money will fund the construction of the Mobile River Bridge — the largest infrastructure project in the state’s history. The president is also fond of GOP Rep. Barry Moore, who is running for Senate in the state. Another close ally, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, is the Republican nominee for governor. He’s running against Democratic former Sen. Doug Jones, who he unseated in 2020.