American history is filled with “you can’t make it up” moments, including among candidates for public office, and 2026 has been no exception to that rule.
Graham Platner, Maine’s Democratic Senate nominee, has been a case study in this, if one just reads some of his more infamous Reddit posts alone, including the especially cringe one about self-pleasuring in porta-potties because “the blue water conditioned me.”
Throughout his campaign, Platner has used some of Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ votes in the Senate to portray her as too out of touch with Maine voters, though she’s repeatedly won reelection in the Pine Tree State.
In one instance, Platner falsely accused Collins of voting to send him to Iraq, which was impossible, considering he enlisted in the U.S. military several months after the 2003 Iraq war started. When Collins nailed him on the inconsistency and also noted he reenlisted at a later date, he bizarrely accused her of attacking and disrespecting veterans.
Another attack Platner regularly uses on Collins is that she was the key vote in 2018 to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh, Platner has also reminded voters, would later join the Supreme Court majority in 2022 in overturning Roe v. Wade.
But when one thinks about the “Believe All Women” strategy Democrats used against Kavanaugh, and also considers that Platner has denied recent allegations of physical abuse and obsessively controlling behavior from an ex-girlfriend who went on the record, one might conclude that, at this point, it might be wise for him to back off on reminders of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.
But he isn’t, and Democrats aren’t. Instead, they are going full steam ahead, banking on manipulating Maine women over the Roe v. Wade issue:
Now, with Senate control on the line, Kavanaugh’s shadow is looming large in Maine in more ways than one. In 2018, Collins defended the Supreme Court nominee as he faced allegations of sexual assault and sexual misconduct that Democrats called disqualifying for a position of power. Kavanaugh denied the allegations, saying, “The truth is I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone, in high school or otherwise.”Today, Collins is facing a Democratic opponent who is accused by an ex-girlfriend of being physically threatening, an allegation she calls “extremely troubling.” Meanwhile, Platner’s allies have observed that his accuser is a conservative advocate who fought to discredit Kavanaugh’s accusers in 2018 over allegations he adamantly denied.
The Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC found in March that using abortion “rights” against Susan Collins was a sure way to motivate Democratic voters in the state:
…a key Democratic super PAC, the Senate Majority PAC, is “highly likely” to run abortion-related ads in Maine in the general election that focus on Collins’ “anti-choice record,” a person with knowledge of the strategy told NBC News. It is the only battleground state where abortion-related ads from the left are expected to play a role in the midterms, this person added.
[…]
In March, Senate Majority PAC’s own polling found that going after Collins on abortion, framing her as the deciding vote for the justices who overturned Roe, was the second-strongest issue to get traction with registered Democrats, behind healthcare and Medicaid cuts.
The problem here, though, is that Democratic voters in Maine appear to already be in Platner’s corner, considering he survived multiple controversies involving the Reddit posts, the Nazi tattoo, and the revelations that he sexted with up to a dozen women after he got married in November 2023. He will also need to win over independent voters, who won’t be nearly as easy to persuade as any holdout Democrat voters.
Plus, abortion is already legal in Maine, so centering an anti-Collins campaign around a “right” that voters in the state already have and won’t lose under the current leadership there seems a bit… dishonest.
With all of that in mind, I’m hard-pressed to figure out how inadvertently reminding Maine voters of his own scandals with women while bringing up the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings is viewed as a winning strategy by Platner and other Democrats:
https://x.com/TriciaOhio/status/2065106186484015601?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Indeed.
– Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via X. –
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