The intense media scrutiny and Republican attacks facing Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner of Maine over his controversial and inflammatory past online comments and his now-removed but well-publicized tattoo on his chest that resembled a Nazi symbol don’t appear to be slowing him down.
A new public opinion poll shows Platner holding an upper single-digit lead over longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine in a race that is among a handful that will likely decide if the GOP holds its slim 53-47 majority in the Senate in this year’s midterm elections.
Platner, a progressive candidate backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, stands at 51% support among likely Maine voters, with Collins at 42%, in a Pine Tree State poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire. Six percent of respondents were undecided, with 2% backing other candidates.
The survey is the latest public opinion poll to indicate Platner, an oyster farmer and Army and Marine veteran who served in combat in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, leading Collins, a moderate Republican who is seeking a sixth six-year term in the Senate representing left-leaning Maine.
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Ninety-one percent of Democrats questioned said they’d vote for Platner in the general election, with 87% of Republicans backing Collins. The senator held a slight 47%-44% edge over Platner for the support of independents.
The poll was released two weeks ahead of Maine’s primary.
Platner is considered the Democrats’ presumptive nominee after two-term Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, who was backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other establishment leaders, suspended her campaign a month ago. Mills cited fundraising concerns and polling woes for her decision to end her bid. But the governor’s name will remain on the primary ballot.
According to the poll, Platner stands at 76% support for the Democratic nomination, with Mills at 10% and long-shot Senate contender David Costello of Brunswick, who spent decades working in state and federal government, at 3%.
Collins faces no challengers for the Republican Senate nomination.
PLATNER CONFRONTED OVER PAST ON-LINE CONTROVERSIAL COMMENTS
Platner, who advocates an economically populist agenda as he takes aim at corporate influences and advocates for the working class as he runs for the Senate, has been criticized by Collins and other Republicans as too extreme for Maine.
“I believe that will be the conclusion of Maine voters. But, obviously, I don’t take anything for granted,” Collins said when asked in a Fox News Digital interview earlier this month if Platner was too far to the left.
But Platner, in a Fox News Digital interview a week later, argued, “What’s radical is somebody like Susan Collins, who, for decades now, has made sure that we pass policies that are going to help corporations and billionaires to the detriment of working people, supporting over and over and over again, illegal and insane foreign wars.”
Platner, amid a slew of media stories, has come under fire from Republicans in recent weeks over his controversial comments from last decade, after he returned from combat tours of duty, as well as more recent comments earlier this decade, that he made on Reddit.
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Platner apologized for his controversial Reddit posts after they made headlines last fall soon after he launched his Senate campaign.
But confronted by Fox News Digital last week near his home in Maine, Platner declined to apologize both to voters and a Purple Heart recipient when asked about a deleted Reddit post where he said the wounded soldier “didn’t deserve to live.”
Meanwhile, Platner has said he got the skull and crossbones tattoo in 2007 while drinking with fellow Marines stationed in Croatia. He said he covered up the tattoo with a new design after learning last year that it resembled a Nazi symbol.
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It’s not just Republicans who are taking aim at Platner over the comments and the tattoo. A few Democrats are also speaking out. Democratic Rep. Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts this week reiterated his criticism of Platner.
“As I said months ago, I find Platner’s Nazi tattoo and his commentary about it personally disqualifying,” Auchincloss wrote Tuesday in a social media post. “If it were me, I’d vote for someone else in the Maine Democratic primary.”
The Pine Tree Poll was conducted May 21-25, with an overall sampling error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.
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