Nearly half of likely voters in Maine's U.S. Senate race view Democratic candidate Graham Platner as "too extreme," a new poll found, even as the 41-year-old progressive oyster farmer clings to a razor-thin lead over Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in the overall horse race.
The New York Times/Portland Press Herald/Siena College survey, conducted June 19, 26 among 608 likely voters, showed Platner ahead of Collins 49% to 47%, a margin well within the poll's ±4.8-point margin of error. Three percent of respondents said they didn't know or declined to answer.
The topline number may look like good news for Democrats. The details underneath it do not.
On every measure of personal character and fitness, Collins dominated. Sixty-six percent of likely voters described the incumbent as having "good character," compared with just 44% who said the same of Platner. On moral values, Collins led 61% to 45%. And on the question of who would do a better job bringing federal dollars home to Maine, Collins held a commanding 61-to-34 advantage, a gap that reflects her long tenure as the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Collins also edged Platner on favorability, 48% to 45%.
The numbers suggest a candidate whose ballot support is running well ahead of the voters' actual confidence in him, a dynamic that rarely survives a full general-election campaign.
Platner's character deficit did not appear from nowhere. His campaign has been dogged by a cascade of personal controversies that would have ended most candidacies months ago.
Among them: allegations of physical abuse from a former girlfriend, sexting other women while married, offensive Reddit posts, and a tattoo that multiple former girlfriends described to confidants as a Nazi SS symbol before its significance became public. One ex-girlfriend told reporters he sometimes referred to it as "my Totenkopf." Platner has denied being violent toward past girlfriends and denied knowing the tattoo bore Nazi associations.
The Reddit posts were no minor embarrassment. Resurfaced comments showed Platner making crude remarks about phallic graffiti, porta-potty sex acts, and, in posts that drew particular outrage, mocking a teenager's suicide attempt. Old online comments also surfaced in which Platner appeared to endorse political violence, dismiss rape in the military, and criticize police and rural America, the AP reported.
Platner has attributed the Reddit commentary to his struggles with PTSD following his time in Iraq and Afghanistan and has denied or dismissed the other accusations.
The allegations from former partners went further. Conservative commentator Lyndsey Fifield, who dated Platner from 2013 to 2015, told Fox News he made disturbing statements and physically restrained her during an argument. Fifield alleged Platner repeatedly said:
"He said this a lot: If anybody ever broke in here, I would rape them."
Multiple women came forward with troubling accounts of Platner's conduct less than a week before the Democratic primary. A pattern of disturbing behavior described by former girlfriends added to the weight of the revelations.
Despite everything, Platner won the Maine Democratic Senate primary. The Associated Press projected his victory on June 9. He had cleared the field earlier in the spring after former Gov. Janet Mills, the establishment-backed candidate, suspended her campaign in April, reportedly after trailing Platner in both fundraising and polling, Newsmax reported.
Mills's name remained on the ballot, but the damage was done. The stronger Democratic candidate was gone, and the party was left with a nominee carrying baggage that would make an opposition researcher's career.
What made the situation worse: not a single Democratic politician who endorsed Platner rescinded that endorsement. Sen. Bernie Sanders backed him. So did Rep. Ro Khanna. Barack Obama's former campaign chief hailed him as a rising star. The party's progressive infrastructure rallied around a candidate that nearly half the state's voters now call too extreme.
Gov. Mills, for her part, notably did not endorse Platner in her post-election statement.
In his primary victory speech, Platner leaned on a redemption narrative:
"If you believe, as I do, that we can change our politics and change our country, then you must also believe that people can change."
He also addressed the doubters directly: "Any of those who feel let down, or disappointed, or disillusioned, it is my job to earn your trust, faith and support."
Democrats entered this cycle viewing Maine as their best Senate pickup opportunity in 2026. Collins is the lone Republican representing New England on Capitol Hill, and 60% of Maine voters disapprove of President Trump, about the same percentage as in September 2020.
On paper, the environment favors a Democratic challenger. In practice, the challenger they nominated is dragging the opportunity down with him.
Platner's lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average now sits at roughly four percentage points, half the margin he enjoyed in April. Collins has pulled nearly even as the sexting fallout has spread, and the character numbers in the latest poll show why the trend line is moving in Collins's direction.
Collins herself has kept her response measured. She told reporters the allegations were "troubling" and said Platner "has a lot of questions to answer."
Maine voters have seen this dynamic before. In 2020, Collins trailed Democratic challenger Sarah Gideon by more than five percentage points in the RCP average, and won re-election by 8.6 points. The polls underestimated Collins then. Platner's backers should consider whether they are making the same miscalculation now, with a far weaker candidate.
Under Maine law, the Democratic nominee can withdraw by July 13, and the party would have until July 27 to select a replacement candidate. Whether national Democrats pressure Platner to step aside remains an open question. At least one Democratic member of Congress has publicly said Platner "disqualified himself" from the race.
But Platner has shown no sign of leaving. He told the Portland Press Herald: "I'm not proud of who I was then, but I am proud of the work I've done since, and the movement we are building in Maine."
A Tavern Research poll cited by National Review found that more than half of respondents felt "more negative" about Platner after learning of his alleged past actions, though a slim majority still favored him over Collins.
That gap between ballot preference and personal confidence is the central tension of this race. Platner's supporters may dislike Collins or dislike Trump enough to check his name on a ballot. But the poll makes clear they do not trust him, not on character, not on values, and not on the practical question of who can deliver for Maine.
Collins's campaign has leaned into her Appropriations Committee seniority for a reason. Sixty-one percent of voters say she would do a better job bringing federal money to the state. Platner has said he eventually wants to sit on the Appropriations Committee, a freshman ambition that voters apparently find unconvincing. The 27-point gap on that question is the widest in the entire poll.
Platner backs a single-payer health care system, packing the Supreme Court, and a wealth tax, positions that earned him Bernie Sanders's endorsement and may explain why nearly half the electorate calls him too extreme for Maine.
Collins, meanwhile, carries the advantages of incumbency, name recognition, and a track record of outperforming her polls. The question is whether the anti-Trump environment in Maine is strong enough to drag a deeply compromised Democratic nominee across the finish line despite himself.
Democrats had the environment. They had the money. They had the seat circled on every target map in Washington. What they didn't have was a candidate who could survive basic scrutiny, and they nominated him anyway.
