Platner Wins Maine Democratic Senate Primary 72-20

Maine voters chose Graham Platner as the Democratic nominee for Senate on June 9, handing the 41-year-old Marine veteran and oyster farmer roughly 72 percent of the primary vote against Governor Janet Mills at 20 percent and David Costello in single digits. The outcome places Platner in a November contest against five-term Republican incumbent Susan Collins that both parties view as decisive for control of the chamber. Platner built his campaign on rising living costs, housing shortages, Medicare for All, a wealth tax above $1 billion, and higher minimum wages, drawing early support from Senator Bernie Sanders and later statements of backing from Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Collins, chair of the Appropriations Committee, has emphasized her record of funding rural hospitals, shipbuilders, and broadband expansion while warning voters against Platner’s record. Platner’s path included multiple documented controversies: a skull-and-crossbones tattoo obtained in 2007 and covered in 2025 after reports linked it to Nazi imagery, sexually explicit messages sent to women other than his wife, and allegations from a former girlfriend of physical restraint during an argument that he has denied. In his victory speech in Blue Hill he told supporters that people can change and that the race concerned a movement larger than any single candidate. Mills, who suspended her campaign in April over fundraising shortfalls, remained on the ballot but offered no endorsement. Republican groups have already reserved nearly $70 million in television time against Platner, while Democratic groups have booked $26 million. The general-election matchup now tests whether voters will prioritize Platner’s economic platform and outsider profile or Collins’s long tenure and institutional record.