The Democrat Party needs to get it together if they think they’re going to win the midterms. But they can’t stop getting in their own way.
Now an embarrassing Democrat candidate is a huge problem for the Left.
Democrats Finally Find Their Voice — After It’s Almost Too Late
The Democratic Party’s most coveted Senate target in 2026 just got a lot harder to defend. And the party that spent months ignoring warning signs about its own nominee is only now finding its voice.
Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey appeared on ABC’s This Week Sunday and was asked directly whether the string of revelations surrounding Graham Platner — the presumptive Democratic nominee to challenge Sen. Susan Collins in Maine — might “jeopardize Democratic hopes to get that Senate seat.” His answer was measured, but the damage was in the admission itself.
“Yes, I have concerns,” Booker said. “That guy has questions to answer, and that’s what campaigns are for.”
He then pivoted — as Democrats always do when they’re sitting on a grenade — to the stakes involved. “I know that so much is riding on Democrats taking control of the Senate,” Booker said. “That this election, if we do not get the votes necessary to take care of the House and the Senate, we will continue to have an out-of-control president.”
The pivot is a tell. When a senator expresses “concerns” about his party’s nominee, mentions those concerns in the same breath as the existential necessity of winning, and then fails to call for that nominee to withdraw, he is doing precisely what the party has been doing since Platner became its frontrunner: acknowledging the problem without solving it.
The Full Record — Which Was Available From The Start
Platner’s troubles did not begin with the s-xting revelations. They were simply the latest installment in a file of controversies that were fully visible before he became the presumptive nominee.
Before his Senate campaign, Platner — a Marine and Army veteran and oyster farmer who carries Sen. Bernie Sanders’ prominent endorsement — made comments on Reddit minimizing s-xual assault. He called himself a “communist.” He dismissed police as “b*stards.” He had a tattoo on his chest that resembled a N*zi symbol, which he has since covered. A deleted post in which he claimed a wounded soldier “didn’t deserve to live” was uncovered and reported. Gov. Janet Mills, his primary opponent, aired a six-figure television attack ad featuring women reacting to his Reddit comments and the tattoo.
Despite all of this, Platner held a 9-point lead over Collins in a University of New Hampshire poll released last week. Democrats supporting him argued that his military biography was an asset and that the controversies, however unpleasant, wouldn’t penetrate with Maine voters.
Then the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times reported that Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner — who has been married to him since November 2023 — informed a senior campaign aide last summer that her husband had been exchanging s-xual messages with multiple other women. She subsequently released a statement saying she was “deeply hurt” and accused a former campaign official of betraying her trust by spreading “malicious gossip” about the marriage.
Levar Stoney, a former Democratic mayor of Richmond, Virginia, said what many in the party were privately thinking: “I can’t help but think that if this candidate were a person of color or a woman, my party would be asking them to consider stepping aside immediately. A N*zi tattoo! Now this.”
What This Means For Democrats’ Senate Dreams
Maine is one of six states where a Democratic Senate pickup was considered realistically achievable. Collins is one of the most durable politicians in New England, with a knack for winning in blue-trending territory that has frustrated Democrats for decades. But her incumbency is beatable, and a well-constructed candidate with no major vulnerabilities could have made a genuine race of it.
Platner is no longer that candidate — if he ever was. The question now is whether any Democratic figure with sufficient standing will summon the courage to do more than express “concerns” on a Sunday show, or whether the party will ride a scandal-scarred nominee into November because nobody was willing to be the one to pull the ripcord. Cory Booker’s admission on Sunday suggests the party knows it has a problem. The problem is that, at this stage of the election calendar, knowing and acting are two very different things.
