{"id":4343,"date":"2026-06-09T18:48:42","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T18:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usglobalnews.com\/2026\/06\/09\/maine-votes-as-scandal-plagued-graham-platner-seeks-democratic-senate-primary-win-us-politics-live\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T18:48:42","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T18:48:42","slug":"maine-votes-as-scandal-plagued-graham-platner-seeks-democratic-senate-primary-win-us-politics-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/?p=4343","title":{"rendered":"Maine votes as scandal-plagued Graham Platner seeks Democratic Senate primary win – US politics live"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greetings from Bangor, Maine, where voters are going to the polls for primary elections that include a crucial Senate race involving the scandal-haunted Graham Platner<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The oysterman and Marine veteran\u2019s string of controversies, ranging from alleged \u201ctoxic\u201d behaviour towards women to a tattoo recognised as a Nazi symbol, have plunged Democrats<\/a> into debates about double standards, purity tests and not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.<\/p>\n

There was a final twist yesterday when Genevieve McDonald, a former political director of Platner\u2019s campaign, published a column<\/a> denouncing Platner as unfit for office.<\/p>\n

\u201cGraham Platner is not someone who would be good for Maine<\/a> or for the country,\u201d McDonald wrote in the Washington Post. \u201cHe exhibits a pattern of dishonest behavior that is impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite being exposed by a series of scandals beginning last October, he kept assuring voters and the Democratic Party that there were no more skeletons in his closet. Then more emerged – the latest, in recent days, have involved former girlfriends\u2019 serious accusations of physical mistreatment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, all the signs on the ground are that most Democratic voters are sticking with Platner. At a campaign event on Sunday, a supporter presented him with a hand-drawn card<\/a> that included the message \u201cwe\u2019ve got your back\u201d.<\/p>\n

Polls close at 8pm ET.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Scandal-haunted<\/div>
<\/span>Scandal-haunted Graham Platner speaks at a campaign event on Sunday in Portland, Maine. <\/span> Photograph: Robert F Bukaty\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greetings from Bangor, Maine, where voters are going to the polls for primary elections that include a crucial<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}