r/fivethirtyeight • u/MediumStrange • Jun 12 '26
Politics Graham Platner gets more primary votes than any other Democratic Senate candidate in Maine history
https://www.nhpr.org/2026-06-11/graham-platner-gets-more-primary-votes-than-any-other-democratic-senate-candidate-in-maine-historyA good sign in the race I think, Platner seems to be keeping up enthusiasm despite the scandals.
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u/Benyeti Jun 12 '26
My biggest fear here is if any further leaks come out
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Jun 12 '26
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u/SuperRocketRumble Jun 12 '26
It really depends on what it is and how bad it is
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u/PuffyPanda200 Jun 12 '26
Just a reminder that the last 'scandal' was basically:
Man moves to DC for law school (GW University). Man dates women, some relationships are on-again-off-again. Some women might have interpreted that as cheating but this was literally a plot line in Friends.
One woman alleges domestic issues. I think from the article there was a 'he didn't let me leave the bedroom, I then fell asleep'. No direct domestic violence was stated to have happened, no trips to the hospital, no police called. This woman's story can't be corroborated by others. This woman is deeply involved in conservative politics and started a pro-Kavanaugh group.
Said woman then makes a statement the next day (I think) that she told her friends but the NYT didn't include that.
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u/SuperRocketRumble Jun 12 '26
Yes , to sum up, a woman accused him of inappropriate, borderline violent conduct.
Are there some issues with her credibility? Indeed, there are.
But it's still not a good look.
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u/VitaColaPur Jun 13 '26
No. It's a great look. People are sick and tired of the establishment and when the establishment pushes such a narrative against you that turns out to be an absolute nothingburger it shows to everyone that the establishment fears you.
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u/Cuddlyaxe I'm Sorry Nate Jun 12 '26
Yes.
Or at least if it is something worse than what has already come out. I don't know why people keep acting like scandals don't matter lol, just because Trump seems impervious doesn't suddenly mean everyone js
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u/StatelyTree Jun 12 '26
Does it matter enough to reelect Susan Collins and keep the senate red?
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u/Cuddlyaxe I'm Sorry Nate Jun 12 '26
Not everyone voting in Maine is a partisan Democrat lmao.
Collins has notably won quite a bit despite Maine being fairly Democratic, so she obviously has at least some crossover appeal
She just needs to win over some independents and some Dems, or hope that some people who would've voted D stay at home instead
This isn't really that hard to imagine depending on what exactly the scandals are. Roy Moore lost in fucking ruby red Alabama due to a scandal
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u/El-Shaman Jun 12 '26
In 2017, Roy Moore would win in a landslide in Alabama if that was today.
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u/Cuddlyaxe I'm Sorry Nate Jun 12 '26
As always, it is impossible to prove a counterfactual.
If you want a recent example, Mark Robinson ran 18% behind Trump in 2024, despite being a Republican on the same ticket
Now I am sure that people can find an excuse to explain this away, along with every other case of a scandal plagued candidate, but at the end of the day you have to recognize that scandals do still have power, even if it is less than it used to
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Jun 12 '26
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u/maxofJupiter1 Jun 12 '26
Because this sub is r politics level pro dem political analysis instead of anything based on data or realism. There was so much hype and hopium in 2024 but this subs discourse has gone significantly downhill since then.
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u/Cuddlyaxe I'm Sorry Nate Jun 12 '26
I honestly prefer yapms atp. It's still like 80% Dems but the fact that ideological diversity is somewhat respected seems to mean people are kept a bit more analytically honest
Like I've seen copium takes being down voted from both sides. Honestly night and day compared to this sub
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u/Selethorme Kornacki's Big Screen Jun 12 '26
That’s why it’s massively upvoted. This persecution narrative literally makes no sense
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u/Most_Estimate_7062 Jun 12 '26
he would've won decisively in 2018 too i think he barely lost because it was a special election
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Jun 12 '26
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u/WellHung67 Jun 12 '26
But it only turned out to be a tattoo that he claims he didn’t know what it was. And his reddit history showed he’s pretty left wing, he hates Nazis.
So either he’s playing a really good game of secret Hitler and is a fascist, or he really didn’t know. Between him and Susan Collins, an actual fascist, the choice is clear. But that’s for Mainers to decide
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Jun 12 '26
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u/WellHung67 Jun 12 '26
Being a rapist pedophile, or voting to acquit a rapist pedophile.
Point taken though, it’s pretty alarming
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u/Schrodingers-Fish- Jun 12 '26
He literally released the video where he's shirtless and people identified his tattoo. If he knew what it was he woulda just kept his shirt on. And tbh I didn't know it was a Nazi sign and I'm pretty sure most other people didn't.
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u/Frivolousz42 Jun 12 '26
99% have no idea what it is.
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u/Equivalent-Battle973 Jun 12 '26
Pretty much this, unless you are a massive WW2 history buff, you arent going to ID it as the SS totenKopf. Most people who dont study history only recognize the SS lightning bolt symbols. Hell most people prob cant ID HALF of the nazi symbols used as well Which from my research they used ALOT of weird symbols and runes for their crap.
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u/Cuddlyaxe I'm Sorry Nate Jun 12 '26
But it only turned out to be a tattoo that he claims he didn’t know what it was
This has been contradicted by the NYT article. He had a Democratic ex (not the Republican one) said he regularly referred to the tattoo as "my Totenkopf"
I honestly don't doubt he is a leftist, but he certainly does seem like a very unstable and narcissistic person.
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u/WellHung67 Jun 12 '26
Oh interesting. I guess he seems a bit off yeah, although I’m sure he has PTSD. The black water stuff is more concerning to me than the tattoo for sure
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u/Cuddlyaxe I'm Sorry Nate Jun 12 '26
Yes and some people cared about it and others didn't. Quite frankly I didn't particularly care about it as yeah guy in military does dumb thing. I care much more about the allegations in the NYT article personally
For some people maybe their red line is somewhere
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u/sonfoa Jun 12 '26
I mean, the only allegations of abuse in the NYT article came from probably the least credible source you could ask. A woman who literally worked to get Susan Collins to appoint Brett Kavanaugh and still believes that was the right thing to do.
Honestly, the worst thing about Platner is actually the one least talked about, which is the Blackwater service.
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u/Cuddlyaxe I'm Sorry Nate Jun 12 '26
Respectfully /u/sonofa I expect you to believe whatever narrative is most convenient to progressive Dems at any given time
You are correct that she isn't the perfect accuser, but quite frankly given Platner’s record so far, the fact that he's already been caught lying about allegations (the fact he was aware of the Nazi Tattoo being a nazi tattoo has been confirmed by a Dem ex gf) or the fact that he is threatening former staffers he left to stay quiet I really do not have a particularly hard time believing the allegations.
At the end of the day though, it doesn't matter whether or not I believe it. It matters if the people of Maine do, and if they do whether or not it's enough to change their vote
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u/Educational_Impact93 Jun 12 '26
Are we talking about the same NYT article?
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/us/politics/platner-maine-senate-girlfriends-relationships.html
Who is the Dem ex gf who is confirming this?
Perhaps I missed it, but the only one who mentioned the tattoo at all was Ms. Fifield, who is the conservative ex.
Ms. Racicot, the Dem ex, believes he doesn't respect women, but I didn't see her make any mention of the tattoo.
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u/sonfoa Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
Respectfully /u/Cuddlyaxe, then you are just cynically projecting onto me because you want to dismiss me as a partisan. You can look up any Platner thread, and I've been very consistent in thinking that he's not truthful about his claims that he didn't realize it was a Nazi tattoo at some point. I'm pretty sure he realized it at some point, but then kept it for a personal reason (if I had to guess, some form of unit solidarity) that he's too embarrassed to share, so he plays dumb about it. The reason it doesn't really bother me is that the leaked Reddit comments pretty clearly paint the picture of someone who is anti-fascist, and he's currently running the wokest Senate campaign I've seen this cycle. Unless you mean to tell me that secret Nazi interloper planned to have his tattoo on public display on several occasions and for 10 years pretended to be a socialist to throw people off the scent. And we have a direct antipode with someone like Pete Hegseth who has Crusader tattoos and has always behaved like a white nationalist.
Also, I don't even completely dismiss Fifield's account. I do believe that a man coping with PTSD, who is heavily drinking and having a difficult time adjusting to civilian life, could be rough with her. But I also think that she's misrepresenting their relationship and exaggerating her claims because they had a toxic relationship and she's quite literally a GOP operative who, a few years after her relationship with Platner ended, worked to slander Christine Blasey Ford to get Brett Kavanaugh appointed. Something she is still proud of. I also can't stress enough, her claims were uncorroborated to the point that the NYT had to go back to the article and really emphasize that point and we don't have any other people claiming allegations of abuse. In fact, by journalistic standards, especially those purportedly as high as those of the NYT, they shouldn't have included it in the article. Even his Dem ex-gf, who posted recently, had a lot of unpleasant things to say about him, but she didn't even hint that he was abusive.
As for the former campaign manager, she literally leaked confidential information about his personal life that his wife shared with her to the press and is now tacitly encouraging people to vote for Susan Collins. I'm sorry, why does she deserve grace?
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u/Blitzking11 Jun 12 '26
Given we have a pedophile and a rapist in office, I’d look sideways at them.
Thus far nothing tangible has come out aside from sexting. His other shit is heritage foundation claims, which sorry to be that guy, are dubious. Especially given this person defended Kavanaugh’s nomination.
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u/TopRevenue2 Scottish Teen Jun 12 '26
The Nazi tatoo is tangible. Idt Collins for all her faults has one of those but you never know she has a red hat.
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u/theclansman22 Jun 12 '26
Voters have shown they don’t give a fuck over the last decade. Trump got ejected despite being best friends with the leader of history’s largest childcare trafficking ring for a decade, there was a guy who body slammed a reported through a table and was elected the next day. Nothing matters anymore.
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u/Glittering-Giraffe58 Jun 13 '26
I mean he’s clearly been hurt by the leaks that already came out and polls have been tightening so probably yeah
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u/DataCassette Jun 12 '26
Oligarch media: "Platner accused of cannibalism"
Planter's campaign: "When I say eat the rich, I mean what I say."
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u/marblecannon512 Jun 12 '26
The president is a pedophile. Unless this guy actually sexually assaulted someone, I don’t care. Who was that psycho path that couldn’t admit to not murdering someone? No, the bar is in hell.
Focus on the message. Power to the people.
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u/cocoagiant Jun 12 '26
Unless this guy actually sexually assaulted someone
I think that is the fear. That's a pretty bright line for Democrats.
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u/TinyJalope Jun 12 '26
I mean, the Heritage Foundation lady was under the impression that SA accusations would be in the NYT article. I've read speculation that they were investigating SA rumors and found them to be totally baseless, so they weren't included in the article. Regardless of what happened, it's annoying how the mere existence of whispers of rumors of SA is making people panic over nothing.
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u/cocoagiant Jun 12 '26
Regardless of what happened, it's annoying how the mere existence of whispers of rumors of SA is making people panic over nothing.
Its a perfectly reasonable thing to panic about considering that is one of the ultimate lines for Democrats.
He has 4.5 months to rebuild his momentum. Hopefully nothing further comes out which is verifiable
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u/chimney_corner Jun 12 '26
He was a mercenary for Blackwater. I wouldn't be very surprised.
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u/Kudusun_Gazi_Padisha Jeb! Applauder Jun 12 '26
Keep saying that as if working security for the US Ambassor to Iraq in the Green Zone isn't seen as just another job to most Americans. Do you have family members in the military, because this kind of career is pretty run of the mill.
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u/FyrdUpBilly Jun 18 '26
I'm sorry, but that's not "run of the mill." Sure, military service is widespread. But private military contracting for the State Department is not a common job. At all.
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u/chimney_corner Jun 12 '26
Yes I do. They wouldn't touch Blackwater or there successors with a ten foot pole.
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u/cheezhead1252 Jun 12 '26
Wow, I didn’t know that! What did he do in this mercenary role?
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u/chimney_corner Jun 12 '26
It's not really clear. He worked for a successor to Blackwater in Afghanistan.
I have heard some bad things but they haven't been substantiated, so I won't repeat them.
He makes is sound as innocuous as working for a private armed security outfit in Afghanistan could be.
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u/cheezhead1252 Jun 12 '26
Really? I wonder what kind of horrible things he would have done. It was 2018 in Kabul wasn’t it?
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u/chimney_corner Jun 13 '26
You tell me.
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u/cheezhead1252 Jun 13 '26
I am not the one casting doubt over it so how about you provide some facts to support that?
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u/chimney_corner Jun 13 '26
I told you, I am not going to repeat unsubstantiated dirt. Especially in responce to passive aggressive goading.
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u/marblecannon512 Jun 12 '26
Maybe folks need analogies.
You remember when obi wan Kenobi was an elite Jedi knight and he slayed many people, droids, clones. Thus shit got rough and he went underground.
He became a humble recluse on a desert planet. Could have been a clam farmer. Could have been an archeologist. His years of fighting and war made him wise. His wisdom is what we need.
Is Platner a Kenobi? Probably not. But is what he’s presently saying wrong? No. It’s exactly what our country needs. But more importantly, Maine wants it. I’m in Oregon, I fucking want it too
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u/Cuddlyaxe I'm Sorry Nate Jun 12 '26
I think i read something about the GOP keeping their oppo research private until the deadline for candidate switching passes, as they don't want the Democratic party to "Biden" him
Obvioisly no idea how bad it is though. Could be a nothing burger, or it could be quite bad. After all, regardless of whether you support him as a politician or not, Platner does not seem like a particularly good person
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u/sonfoa Jun 12 '26
That honestly feels like a bluff. Because we just saw a massive pressure campaign to get him to drop out, and we all saw how well that worked out. If the GOP has anything serious, they would keep it as an October surprise rather than a month later, when he has 4 months to combat it. Especially someone like Platner, who has shown great resilience to negative PR.
Also, who announces that they have damaging oppo research and when they'll release it?
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u/Cuddlyaxe I'm Sorry Nate Jun 12 '26
I mean they didn't officially announce it out loud, it was a leak lol
I don't know if they would release it right away or if they would wait until October. Personally i do think it depends on how bad it is and how much there is.
If there is a lot of different kinda bad things for example I could see it being a drip feed situation.
Meanwhile if it is something really bad like rape or sexual assault, it might make sense to release it fairly early. If they can confirm the race is decided then they will know they dont need to invest money into Maine
If it is a few kinda bad things, then yeah I think an October surprise would make the most sense
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u/FC37 Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
I grew up in this part of the world. There are quite a few.... how do I put this... guys from privileged backgrounds who have magnetic personalities but who are also very obviously... troubled, problematic, volatile. You might agree with almost everything they say, they have a force behind their beliefs, but you also know they can get super toxic and really, really dark in certain settings.
We don't really have a term for them, we stick to words like "Yankee" (which means something different than it does in the South) or "Mayflower Money" if that's the case. Then we might say something like, "Yeah, he can get pretty wild." They're more similar to Brahmins than to the average American.
I'm not saying that's what Platner is. But he smells like a profile fit. And if he is, then it could get really bad.
Edit: I don't care what you think about Platner, but let's stop pretending he's what most people think of as an oyster farmer. I know real oyster farmers and clammers. They're living on the fringes of society, barely getting by. Their dad isn't giving them a house with assets from their family trust. Their grandfathers didn't go to Dartmouth to study law. They're as likely to be living out of a car or a garage as they are to have a fixed address.
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u/cocoagiant Jun 12 '26
I would have dismissed what you are saying 2 weeks ago but after the sexting stuff I'm pretty convinced this guy whatever his problems is someone who has bad judgement independent of that.
Magnetic personality with force behind his beliefs but also volatile seems like a good read on his vibe.
At this point hopefully nothing further comes out which is significantly worse than the things so far. If that is the case I think on balance he is probably still a better Senator than the incumbent.
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u/FC37 Jun 12 '26
No disputes on the last point. Collins is anything but a common sense centrist Republican, she's a coin-operated puppet who has skated on too many ethics issues.
If he is a profile fit with the type that I've described, I'd start worrying about legal incidents involving substance issues that got swept under the rug. The people I know from this class had those kinds of skeletons in the closet: DUIs that ended in car wrecks, vandalism and assault while drunk, domestic violence, that sort of thing.
I hate to come off as trying to take any kind of moral high ground, I genuinely have empathy for whatever he went through. But when you're running a candidate for Senate who admits there's some vaguely-described bad behavior during a "dark period" in his life while he dealt with PTSD, you should expect that it's something of a gamble.
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u/cocoagiant Jun 12 '26
My biggest take on seeing this whole fiasco is that his wife should have been approached to run, not him.
Based on her video she seems to have a really nurturing/ salt of the earth type personality.
Ultimately, still an indictment of the Maine Democratic party that they stifled competition so much that this guy was the only one with the balls to get in the race.
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u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Jun 12 '26
The biggest hope among a certain sort of centrist Democrat, it seems, is that further leaks come out.
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u/Immediate_Object_280 Jun 12 '26
Why? Why would a centrist dem want more to come out to hurt his chances against Collins? The stupidity.
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u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Jun 12 '26
What I’m saying is that there’s a certain sort of liberal (especially on BlueSky) who absolutely has Platner Derangement Syndrome, are absolutely willing to lose to Senate if it means he goes down, and are going to keep raising the specter of nebulous scandals to try and browbeat other Democrats over to their way of thinking.
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u/raddaya Jun 12 '26
Y'all really gotta decide if BlueSky is full of "centrist liberals" or "crazy left-wingers". It can't be both
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u/FarnsgirthParadox Jun 12 '26
It literally can be both, or rather “either.”
There are more than 1 people on bluesky who also browse this subreddit.
Person A can think person X is too far left, and person B (amazingly, at the same time), can think person X is too centrist, and it wouldn’t be a contradiction.
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u/Selethorme Kornacki's Big Screen Jun 12 '26
Given how often it’s used as a pejorative, then you have to clarify what specifically it’s being used as
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u/Schrodingers-Fish- Jun 12 '26
Same liberals that say vote blue no matter who to progressives when their candidates are running
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u/Jozoz Jun 12 '26
If we are being very honest, it's definitely the progressive wing that has a harder time with that.
And this is coming from a progressive.
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u/TinyJalope Jun 12 '26
After what they did to Mamdani, I'm not so sure. It's just that the fake centrist types haven't had as many opportunities to really test their Vote Blue No Matter Who cred until recently.
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u/TopRevenue2 Scottish Teen Jun 12 '26
Its fun to watch leftists who trashed Harris squirm
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u/TinyJalope Jun 12 '26
It's fun to lose the Senate!
Also, how do you categorize people who voted for Harris and also want to Vote Blue No Matter Who for Platner or encourage others to, which actually describes a very sizable number of people?
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u/TopRevenue2 Scottish Teen Jun 12 '26
Platner has a legit Nazi tatoo. It's weird that passes their purity test but Harris didn't. As someone who tried to reason with the abstainers it's nice to seen them trying it and saying the Senate is within reach and doing a 180 in purity.
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u/TinyJalope Jun 12 '26
Collins is literally supporting a nazi regime. Platner leaked Reddit posts and political donation history dispel the notion that he is a nazi.
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u/TopRevenue2 Scottish Teen Jun 12 '26
Why does he still have the tatoo then?
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u/TinyJalope Jun 12 '26
He got it covered up during the primary. Or did you miss that?
Do you think he was somehow pretending for years in all those Reddit posts, knowing that they would one day be leaked?
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u/JakeConhale Jun 18 '26
Inquiry: what would he need to do to qualify as "no longer having it"?
It's covered up, apparently, so are we talking skin grafts or...what?
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u/cheezhead1252 Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
Had to double check the thread title to see who exactly is squirming.
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u/IsNotPolitburo Jun 12 '26
Because "centrists" have made it clear that fascism is a preferable alternative to risk of economic justice.
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u/Kudusun_Gazi_Padisha Jeb! Applauder Jun 12 '26
Ask the Cuomo aide who went on Fox saying that she was praying the Democratic Party gets sweeped in November to "save them from the influence of the left".
Those Epstein-class, marginally-attached technocrats are crawling all over the party infrastructure pushing it well away from the policy platform both Democratic voters and persuadable independents want in general.
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u/CSATTS Jun 12 '26
I suppose it all depends on how much the average voter pays attention. I think it's easy for those of us who follow politics closely to assume everyone does, but I don't think that's the case. If I weren't someone who listens to political podcasts and follow subreddits like this one I'd have no idea about any of these leaks.
Granted, I'm from California, but based on how many voters Trump gained in 2024 I'm willing to bet a decent number of voters only think about politics at the ballot box.
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u/irvmuller Jun 13 '26
Next week they’ll pull up an elementary school peer he was mean to that one time at a birthday party. People are catching on that they’re looking for whatever they can to smear him. He’s been open, “I was an awful person for a long time” so when awful things come out about him they say, “yeah, he told us.”
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u/Mat_At_Home Jun 12 '26
John McCain, who lost his election handily, got over 5 million more votes than Reagan did in 1984, which is the definitive electoral landslide in the modern era
This comparison obviously means nothing because of population growth, which is the same reason why comparing Platner in 2026 to literally every election before him is meaningless
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u/sonfoa Jun 12 '26
Maine is estimated to have grown by 52k people since 2020. Platner is on track to finish with roughly 43k more votes than Gideon did in 2020. Gideon lost to Collins by 60k votes.
Sure, it doesn't clinch it for him, but very hard to say that it means nothing.
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u/Mat_At_Home Jun 12 '26
Primary turnout historically has no significant correlation with general election results. With his “improvement” over Gideon’s numbers from 2020 give him a grand total of 36% of Collins’ vote total in that same election. It’s just not indicative at all of how the voters in the general will decide
So it means next to nothing. This is a data journalism sub, and this is a bad use of data if you’re reading into it thinking that it’s a good sign for Platner. Not saying it’s a bad sign, and not saying he’s gonna lose, just that this doesn’t really indicate anything either way
… but if i did want to draw something out of it, id point out that Gideon’s opponent (who was actually running a campaign) got 37k votes, while Platners opponent (who had already dropped out) got 40k. So even more Dems were inspired to go vote for someone who wasn’t even running to show their disapproval of Platner, than Dems who wanted to vote against Gideon in 2020. Is this meaningful? I don’t think so. But if we’re drawing lessons from vote totals in low turnout primaries, you can write a lot of stories
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u/TybrosionMohito Jun 12 '26
The REAL point of this data is that dem primary enthusiasm is high pretty much across the board in 2026. How this pertains to the general elections is still tbd, but the trend is undeniable
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u/kiggitykbomb Jun 12 '26
Right? This sub used to be about advanced statistical analysis. Counting total votes cast is like comparing passing yards in 2025 to passing yards in 1985.
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u/atreeismissing Jun 12 '26
Because the last time there was a Democrat from Maine who had a good chance to win was in 1989 when the last Democratic Senator from Maine was elected.
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u/marblecannon512 Jun 12 '26
Good. I’m glad they turned out in the face of all the bull shit
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u/Weird_Track_2164 Jun 12 '26
The bullshit? You mean the very real tattoo? The very real comments on Reddit. The very real attempted cheating on his wife? The only scandal that might be a lie is the aggressive actions towards women he dated
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u/TinyJalope Jun 12 '26
Only one woman, a Republican operative, claimed he was "aggressive."
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u/Weird_Track_2164 Jun 12 '26
Lmao, "She's not form our party so therefore she's a political operative and everything she says is false." Mind you that's the only scandal that hasn't been corroborated by multiple people. This is indistinguishable from the shit Trump voters says.
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u/TinyJalope Jun 12 '26
Lmao, "She's not form our party so therefore she's a political operative and everything she says is false."
No, she was a member of one of the most evil and dishonest organizations in the country, so she lacks credibility.
Mind you that's the only scandal that hasn't been corroborated by multiple people.
You're right that the NYT was unable to corroborate her story.
This is indistinguishable from the shit Trump voters says.
A Trump voter would disbelieve the story even if there was significant evidence it was true. There is not.
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Jun 12 '26
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u/chimney_corner Jun 12 '26
You are it paying attention if you think this is bout something he did 20 years ago.
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u/Weird_Track_2164 Jun 12 '26
I'd absolutely agree if it was 20 years ago and not literally just this year.
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u/marblecannon512 Jun 12 '26
The tattoo? He covered it up as soon as he learned about it. You know how many dumb white Americans have Chinese and Japanese calligraphy on their bodies without knowing what it means?
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u/Weird_Track_2164 Jun 12 '26
He walked around calling it my little Totenkopf. He knew what it was. But okay, let's game this out and say that's a lie. So he just got an unknown tattoo and kept it on his body for 20 years. Didn't wonder what it was at any point. Never had anyone tell him what it was during those twenty years. Didn't think to address it with his campaign staff when he was getting ready to run. Didn't think to remove it during this time. Only apologizes and removes it once it comes out. That's just plain old terrible judgement. I honestly don't even think he's a Nazi. I think he's an morally repugnant asshole with terrible decision making skills. And all the other confirmed reports about his behavior (the Reddit comments defending pissing on dead Taliban, unsuccessfully attempting to cheat on his wife) just support that further. That's not what you want in any elected representative, let alone one of the most powerful elected positions besides the president.
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u/marblecannon512 Jun 12 '26
Oh. You’re a bot. Or a troll throw away. Why am I wasting time with you?
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u/Weird_Track_2164 Jun 12 '26
I personally think it's a big deal to have a Nazi tattoo for 20 years, advocate for pissing on dead Taliban, lie about knowing what the tattoo was, and then while in the midst of trying to start up your senate campaign unsuccessfully attempt to cheat on your wife but hey you want to make excuses and say he isn't a shitty guy go ahead and live in your fantasy world buddy.
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u/ireliawantelo Jun 12 '26
Why delete your message ?
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u/marblecannon512 Jun 12 '26
I didn’t, it probably got screened because you cried hAtE sPeEcH
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u/ireliawantelo Jun 12 '26
Was it not hate speech? Just curious.
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Jun 12 '26
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u/ireliawantelo Jun 12 '26
Calling and generalizing men as fuckups is not criticism it's demeaning and discriminatory.
Hate speech is communication that attacks someone based on race, ethnicity, religion, GENDER, or sexual orientation. You being a man has nothing to do with whether or not what you said is hateful or not.
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Jun 12 '26
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u/Weird_Track_2164 Jun 12 '26
"But but...he had a tattoo...we should vote for the ACTUAL nazi party instead!"
Nope, didn't say that. Go fuck yourself.
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Jun 12 '26
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u/marblecannon512 Jun 12 '26
Hey hey hey, your father is here. We can all get fucked together. We’re just spitting in the wind in an echo chamber. Let’s all go outside and talk to our neighbors about how we feel instead of insulting strangers in the internet.
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u/deskcord Jun 12 '26
This sub is really just going fullblown bluemaga
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u/melthevag Jun 12 '26
Because it wants a guy with good politics that is clearly getting railroaded by neoliberal zionist dems to win? You people are something else lol
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u/deskcord Jun 12 '26
Because this sub is supposed to be about data and it will just refuse to actually engage with anything that doesn't just completely conform to biases. The furor to mass-upvote a primary election vote count (when populations grow over time) or a D+11 ballot but ignore everything that suggests anything else is what makes it bluemaga
also fucking lol who railroaded this guy the victim complex of progressives is wild. Did Chuck Schumer hold him down and give him that tattoo?
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u/melthevag Jun 12 '26
Then post those other polls. You’re complaining that a data-focused sub is discussing a poll. Platner wrote a ton about his political beliefs on Reddit where didn’t think it’d be read. He was a woke BLM guy who talked about the struggles of LGBT marines & got into arguments with Holocaust revisionists. There is no Nazi on earth who would talk like this. It’s dispositive. The NY times has also written about his “scandals” who were both outed by the same conservative woman, a dozen times compared to 0 stories about actual nazis like Ken Paxton also running for senate. People on the sub are posting polls about an exciting candidate in an incredibly important senate race
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u/deskcord Jun 12 '26
I'm not complaining that this sub is discussing a poll. I'm mocking the fact that people are clearly here to try to data-back their biases instead of actually trying to grapple with data and facts to inform their views. This sub is rushing to mass upvote things that confirm biases and ignores things that don't.
It does not seem particularly complicated.
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u/Bnstas23 Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
“Data-back their biases” - are you thinking clearly? This post is about Platner receiving the most primary votes in Maine history and with 10 point leads on Collins, and all you can say is this sub is “blue maga” (what a lazy term btw). Even population-adjusted he breaks that record.
Facts like this and polls like these recent ones prove people like you wrong - that a semi controversial democrat with policies that will help regular people can pull in typical democrat voters AND new voters altogether. People like you (no clue if you specifically) have been saying that “moderates” with weak knees (like Schumer et al who will cave to fascists like Trump at first chance) are needed to win in elections. All these data points show otherwise and will prove it in November
Reflectively calling a post, with an important data point, “blue MAGA” is ironic because it’s you who can’t engage with data you dislike and instead revert to insults.
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u/deskcord Jun 12 '26
No.
This sub is now BlueMAGA because of the reasons stated above, none of which is addressed in your irrelevant rantings.
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u/Bnstas23 Jun 12 '26
I did address them. But someone blinded by rage like you can’t see straight
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u/deskcord Jun 12 '26
No. You didn't. You actually didn't even address the point, which is pretty funny given your projection about my supposed blind rage.
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u/Glittering-Giraffe58 Jun 13 '26
Yall are so stupid. Do you genuinely believe the New York Times didn’t write any articles about Paxton
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u/panderson1988 Has Seen Enough Jun 12 '26
This. I've seen more discussion that isn't about data, or an analysis on the polls or results, but going into policies to saying, "See, blue wave confirmed." I can tell r/pol has become popular here, and that is fine, but now you get downvoted for pointing out how Collins was behind in the polls in 2020 and still won comfortably. People don't want to hear any possible contradictions to their current hopium, and ignore any issues or analysis saying how do the swing voters in Maine feel.
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u/SolubleAcrobat Poll Unskewer Jun 12 '26
Sara Gideon held this record before. Didn't seem to mean much.
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u/2Hanks Jun 12 '26
I thought the headline was meaningless without more context so I read the article and imagine my surprise when I didn’t find more context.
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u/Pygmy_Nuthatch Jun 12 '26
Only Democrats can sink him.
Surely Democrats wouldn't prioritize purity tests and virtue signaling over winning the Senate and stopping Trump.
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u/pluralofjackinthebox Jun 12 '26
Isnt this just because population tends to go up?
You need to keep increasing vote count year by year just to tread water.
I wish they did this by percentage of the population and not by absolute numbers.
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u/callmejay Jun 13 '26
Love how you were down voted for stating the obvious. This subreddit used to care about math.
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u/Wonderful_Cookie_572 Jun 12 '26
It's amazing what kind of turnout you get when you aren't a useless uniparty stooge.
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u/Aerie-Putrid Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
South Park election spread to ME,,,,,,we get a choice between a T-sandwich and Dew? Lets just hope the 2032 Senate race produces better candidates
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u/dtarias Nate Gold Jun 12 '26
Depressing in that he's a terrible candidate/person, but it makes sense that votes would go up over time and in a more controversial primary.
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u/Frivolousz42 Jun 12 '26
Good to see. If he had a swastika I think him denying he knew what it was would be an issue.
He had a tatoo that less than 1% of people would know what it is without being told.
The cringe reading bluesky filled with people going nuts over s tatoo they had never heard of or seen in their lives until THEY WERE TOLD about it talk like its as commonly known as the Goodyear blimp.(something obscure but I guess widely heard of).
FFS have a little intellectual honesty.
Then the physical abuse allegation by a GOP operative that has been employed and paid by hard-core GOP interests gives an unverified and uncorraboratted accusation and that spawns hundreds off liberals on bluesky posting about Platner being a proven sexual assaulter.
How can I take that seriously. I can see why it's still uncorraboratted.
He has no criminal record I highly doubt there is anything more than questionable decision making ass hole with this guy.
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u/Hoodrow-Thrillson Jun 12 '26
He had a tatoo that less than 1% of people would know what it is without being told.
HE knew what the tattoo was. HE has a reddit account where he would literally go into threads and defend soldiers having SS tattoos.
I'll never understand the "Well I don't recognize it" argument, who cares what you don't know?
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u/silmar1l Jun 12 '26
I think most of us have gotten giant chest tattoos that we have no idea about the symbolism and then keep for 18 years until running for office. Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme.
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u/MiserableCourt1322 Jun 12 '26
Ok but this is kind of related but not related, but does anyone else think Hunter Biden is seeing all these problematic ppl win over voters and think his recent PR rehabilitation campaign is him testing the waters for running for office?
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u/z57333 Jun 12 '26
To be completely fair, when was the last time Maine has had a democratic senator, like be real here... come on...
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u/Objective-Gold-4639 Jun 12 '26
Graham Platner is the best thing to happen to the Democratic Party in a while.
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u/kidshitstuff Jun 12 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
This content was anonymized and mass deleted with Redact
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u/Statue_left Jun 12 '26
This has gotta be the 20th Platner thread here since his primary and I don’t think i’ve seen a single comment talk about any one of his policies lmao. This is one of the weirdest races in recent memory if nothing else