Mills spotlights Platner’s controversial past remarks in first negative ad

Gov. Janet Mills is spotlighting her U.S. Senate primary opponent Graham Platner’s controversial past in her first negative ad, marking an aggressive shift in the campaign one day after the line-up for the June 9 primary was finalized.

The six-figure ad buy, which the Mills campaign said will stream on broadcast and cable statewide, comes after several polls showed the political newcomer ahead of the two-term governor.

The 30-second spot highlights controversial past comments the military veteran made online downplaying sexual assault and shows women reacting to the statements.

In one 2013 comment, first reported by the Bangor Daily News in October, Platner wrote that people concerned about rape should “take some responsibility for themselves and not get so f—-ked up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to?”

“Disqualifying,” Vassalboro resident Peggy Schaffer, former vice chair of the Maine Democratic Party, says in the ad.

The negative spot signals what’s likely to come in the campaign for the Democratic nomination, and beyond. Mills told reporters in late February that a Republican campaign would “make mincemeat” of Platner’s record in a general election match-up. 

The Senate Leadership Fund, the fundraising of the Senate majority leader, announced in January its largest ever investment in Maine — $42 million — to support incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins. 

‘Washington need not apply:’ How Mainers are evaluating controversy-laden Graham Platner

Platner campaign’s also launched a new ad Tuesday, which features a supporter with the same name as Maine’s long-time senator. “That Susan Collins is a DC insider,” she says. “This Susan Collins is voting for Graham Platner,” adding that she is “a Democrat with backbone.”

Throughout his campaign, Platner has painted himself as a party outsider, contrasting himself to the governor, who previously served two terms as the state’s attorney general and is backed by the Democratic establishment in Washington, D.C.

Platner’s first negative ad against Mills in October suggested voters are tired of the 78-year-old. The ad similarly featured women. As they sat around a table, one said, “Janet Mills again? She was a good governor, but I think it’s time for change.” 

In a Tuesday afternoon press conference, Platner’s supporters criticized Mills and the Democratic Party as using his past remarks to distract from issues such as access to health care and the rising cost of living.

“​​We’re seeing what feels like a last-ditch effort to tear down the very candidate who is energizing people across the state, because what Graham is building is real,” said Megan Smith, a Bangor-area community organizer with the Maine People’s Alliance. “He’s reaching people that felt disillusioned with politics for years. He’s engaging people who have never seen themselves as political before. And he’s turning that energy into action, into organizing, into community, and to hope.”

Since reporting first unearthed Platner’s controversial history, shortly after Mills’ entered the race, many progressive Mainers have stuck by him, evidenced by crowds of defiant supporters that continue to flock to his events. 

“We all knew this kind of attack was going to be coming,” state Rep. Gary Friedmann, a Democrat who represents the Bar Harbor region where Platner lives, said during the press conference. “We just didn’t think it would come from our governor in the Democratic primary.” 

Friedmann said it’s a sign that Platner’s message “is hitting home so hard that the establishment is desperately trying to divert voters from the most important pressing issues of today.”

Reiterating his response when his past comments first resurfaced, Platner said during the press conference that he “was horrified” by what he wrote.

“I didn’t recognize myself in this person that was struggling to find meaning and posted awful things 13 years ago,” he said. “I am sorry, but it does not in any way reflect who I am today or the beliefs that I hold.”

In the past, he has defended the comments as the “shitpostings” of a disillusioned veteran who had just emerged from the “hypermasculine,” violent world of the infantry. He has also said they are evidence that people can change, particularly when they “find community.”

Among those controversies was also his now-covered tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol, a connection he denied knowing. Mills’ ad ends with a video showing the tattoo. 

“The closer you look,” the narrator says, “the worse it gets.”

Mills’ ad launch coincided with several new endorsements from female former lawmakers and community leaders on Tuesday, including former state Sens. Eloise Vitelli, Linda Sanborn, Emily Cain, Barbara Trafton and Lynn Bromley (another woman featured in the Mills ad), as well as former state Reps. Margaret Craven and Leila Percy.