PORTLAND, Maine — Dem Senate hopeful Graham Platner is facing a firestorm over everything from his treatment of women to rape fantasies and a Nazi-linked tattoo, but try telling that to the crowd at an Elks Lodge here Sunday.
The embattled candidate took the stage to a booming hero’s welcome from supporters who referred to themselves as his “Grahamily” — as he rattled off a policy-centric stump speech while completely ignoring any mention of his growing piles of scandal in his 83rd town hall this primary-election cycle.
“A lot of people who are supporting [Platner] have a lot of issues with the [Democratic] national party,” attendee Karen Lemoine told The Post. “[Party bigs] pick their guy or gal … and that’s where the money goes.
“There’s a lot of anti-establishment feelings here,” she said at the jam-packed rally. “We don’t care what Washington says.”
Lemoine conceded that Platner has “clearly shown some very poor judgment” in the past but argued that he deserves a chance to prove himself in the halls of Congress and rebuild trust.
Other Platner backers conveyed similar sentiments, finding ways to downplay or shrug off the horny oyster farmer’s hefty baggage.
“We’re talking about things that happened 10-plus years ago at a time where he’s been very open about the trauma he’s experiencing,” Ryan Prescott, 37, of Saco said of the Marine veteran.
“I like to believe that people can change. I’m not the same person I was 10 years ago.”
Some of Platner’s scandals, such as extramarital sexting, took place recently. Platner got married in 2023, and his wife informed his campaign about the sexually explicit messages to other women last year, the Wall Street Journal reported.
It also was revealed early on in his campaign that he previously had a skull and crossbones tattoo on his chest that resembled a Totenkopf, or “death’s head” symbol that the German Nazi SS used. Platner has denied knowing about the Nazi ties of the tattoo, which he has since inked over.
But one of his ex-girlfriends told the New York Times last week that Platner was well aware of the tat’s notorious inference and referred to it as “my Totenkop” while using a foriegn accent.
The ex, Lyndsey Fifield, a GOP operative, also recounted how he allegedly yanked her out of a cab during an argument, “twisted her arm behind her back” and locked her in a bedroom for a night.
She later publicly suggested that her story in the Times was dramatically watered down. Platner has fessed up to being a bad boyfriend but denied accusations of physical wrongdoing toward women.
Fifield also alleged that Platner would tell her how he would rape intruders if they barged into his home.
“He said this a lot: ‘If anybody ever broke in here, I would rape them,’ ” she told the outlet.
He insisted it wouldn’t be in “a sexual way, not in a gay way,” she said.
“He was like, ‘I would rape them to show them that I’m dominant,’ ” Fifield said.
On reddit, he also has trashed a Purple Heart veteran, suggested that sexual assault victims should “take some responsibility” and defended urinating on dead Taliban soldiers.
But none of the fans in Sunday’s crowd in Platner’s home state asked him about any of the disturbing allegations.
Attendees instead signed a card for him describing themselves as his “Grahamily” and giving him reassuring messages.
The Marine veteran briefly broke down in tears when presented with the card.
“A lot of folks at the national level misunderstand the reason they keep getting everything wrong,” a defiant Platner told the crowd. “They think this is a race about me, but it isn’t. This is a race about us. This is a race about the future of politics in Maine.
“I am very much just some random guy from Sullivan, Maine,” Platner claimed.
“We get to show a political establishment that my entire life has told me that this kind of politics was impossible. We’re going to show them that not only is it possible; it’s the future.”
Heidi Vierthaler, a Mainer in her 50s, told The Post afterward, “I was so relieved that it wasn’t going to be all about the scandals and that it was all about policy.
“The issues need to be discussed, and I think that it’s sad that we have so many people talking about somebody’s relationship,” she said, recalling that she was part of the MeToo movement but declined to get into specifics.
“From what it sounds like, this is not the kind of situation that happened with Graham.”
Republicans have pummeled the left amid Platner’s rise, accusing them of hypocrisy for being selective of the women they choose to believe, given the progressives shrugging off Fifield’s account over her ties to the GOP.
But so far, there are very few other indications that the parade of scandals around Platner is putting a dent in his political prospects.
He currently leads incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) by 7.4 percentage points in the latest RealClearPolitics polling aggregate, although the site underestimated her significantly during her 2020 reelection bid.
“We’re voting on Tuesday. And the rest of the country still thinks we’re not going to pull it off,” Platner told a packed crowd of devoted followers of the upcoming primary where he is already widely seen as the presumptive nominee.
“They don’t know.”
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