Gov. Janet Mills and oyster farmer Graham Platner are battling over female voters as Maine’s critical Senate race heats up, underscoring how the group could be decisive both in the June Democratic primary and the November general election.
Mills and Platner have launched TV ads in recent days narrated by women and held dueling events highlighting women who are backing their campaigns. Platner’s campaign also has been heavily targeting women with ads online.
The latest missive came Thursday as Mills released another TV ad targeting Platner over online posts in 2013 in which he downplayed sexual assault. Platner, a combat veteran, has disavowed those posts and attributed them to his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder following his service in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The back-and-forth on the airwaves demonstrates how both campaigns are vying for female voters in the primary to take on GOP Sen. Susan Collins. The Maine race is a must-win contest for Democrats in their quest to net four seats and take control of the Senate.
“It’s hard to imagine winning the Maine primary without doing well amongst women, and particularly older women,” said David Farmer, a Maine Democratic strategist who is not involved in the Senate race. He noted that women over age 65 tend to make up a plurality of primary voters in Maine. Polls indicate that women, a key part of the Democratic coalition broadly, are particularly fired up ahead of the midterm elections.
A recent national NBC News poll found 67% of women rated themselves as 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale of their interest in the election, compared with 61% of men. The survey also found women favoring Democrats in the battle for Congress by 7 points, while men favored Republicans by 9 points.
Collins has been able to survive in the left-leaning state in part because of her appeal among female voters. During her last re-election race in 2020, she narrowly won Maine women by 3 points, even as President Donald Trump lost them by 23 points, according to NBC News exit polling.
That’s in part why Mills and her allies are highlighting Platner’s past comments, casting them as particularly offensive to women in the state who could be swayed to support Collins again.
“Women are the key bloc here in the primary, and also in the general, so it’s no surprise that that’s who’s being targeted now,” said Mills supporter Emily Cain, a former state legislator and former executive director of EMILY’s List, a group that supports female Democratic candidates and is backing Mills.
“Janet’s contention with Graham Platner is that his own words from the past, these and others, make his path to victory in the fall very difficult against Susan Collins,” Cain said.
Mills goes on the attack
Platner’s online Reddit posts, which resurfaced last fall, included a slew of controversial comments, including calling himself a communist; saying white, rural Americans were racist and stupid; and writing that “all” police officers are “bastards” after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd in 2020.
In posts first reported by The Washington Post, Platner responded to a Reddit commenter who wrote, “There’s always that story about the girl who gets raped because she drank too much and somebody took advantage of that.”
Platner responded, “Holy f---, how about people just take some responsibility for themselves and not get so f---ed up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to? Men and women, you make a choice to consume enough of a substance to lose your self control. So if you don’t want to be in a compromising situation, act like an adult for f---s sake.”
The first negative ad from Mills’ campaign that launched last week featured women, including some prominent Democratic leaders, reading those words and saying they were disqualifying.
Mills defended the ad in a virtual news conference last week with female supporters, saying, “It’s important that Mainers hear Platner’s own words and the absolutely abhorrent things that he has said.”
“We’re garnering more support, especially from women, day by day,” she added later.
The latest ad from the Mills campaign that launched Thursday features an Army veteran named Betsy E. who says she was raped.
“For all women who have ever been raped, the pain never goes away,” Betsy says in the ad. “Graham Platner said women could avoid rape if they don’t get so ‘f---ed up’ they end up having sex with someone they don’t mean to. Mr. Platner, I was not ‘f---ed up.’”
“Platner said women could avoid rape if they act like adults for f---s sake. The rapists are to blame, not women like me,” Betsy says. “Graham Platner is unacceptable.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who endorsed Platner last week, said in response to the latest ad from the Mills campaign: “Graham Platner has apologized, and has gone out every day to meet the people of Maine where they are. He’s building a grassroots campaign. People have plenty of opportunities to ask him questions and to talk with him. I support Graham Platner because he is a fighter for working people, and we need more fighters here in the United States Senate.”
Platner responds
Platner also hosted his own event with women who support him as the attack ads began to fly last week, saying he was “horrified” to read his old online posts when they resurfaced in the fall.
“I did not recognize in them myself or the man that I am today. I didn’t recognize myself in this person that was struggling to find meaning and posted awful things 13 years ago. I am sorry,” Platner said. “But it does not in any way reflect who I am today or the beliefs that I hold.”
Megan Smith, a community organizer with Maine People’s Alliance, which has endorsed Platner, vouched for him at that event last week. She told NBC News that she participated in the event because she was disappointed to see Mills launch a negative attack and she felt that Mills was “rehashing” the issue several months after Platner’s comments came to light.
“I listened to what Graham had to say,” Smith said when she was asked about her response to Platner’s online posts downplaying sexual assault. “He did not shy away at any of his town hall events at answering difficult questions, especially from women. I think it was truly a humbling moment for him. For me, it was reassuring for somebody to take responsibility for past actions.”
The Platner campaign has also been pushing back against the attacks on the airwaves. His campaign launched a TV ad saying those comments are “not who I am.” Another TV ad from the Platner campaign features a woman saying he has apologized and changed.
And Platner’s campaign has been largely targeting women with digital ads. Eighty percent of his campaign spending on ads on Google this year has targeted female only voters, according to the platform’s ad tracker. The Mills campaign did not report specific digital ads aimed at women.
Smith pushed back against the notion that Platner’s past comments could hurt his standing among women.
“I personally have not seen women that I know or in my orbit suddenly pull back from Graham,” she said. “The press conference last week was a really good reminder of that and how many women showed up, very last-minute, to come and support Graham.”
But Jill Barkley Roy, who appeared in Mills’ first negative ad about Platner, said during Mills’ virtual event last week that she had heard from Mainers who had previously not been aware of Platner’s posts.
“So many people have reached out to me in the last day to let me know that they didn’t know about these comments, and now they do,” said Barkley Roy, director of Emerge Action Fund, which recruits and trains female candidates. “And they deserve to know, because if this went on to a general election, these comments would certainly be splattered all across the TV and used against him in the general.”
Limited public polling in the race has found Platner faring very well among women, with an even wider lead among men.
A new Emerson College poll of likely Democratic primary voters released Thursday found Platner leading Mills by nearly 30 points, with 13% of voters undecided. Platner had an 18-point advantage among women and a 41-point advantage among men.
The survey did find that Platner is not as well-known as Mills — 17% of Democratic voters in the survey said they were unsure how they felt about Platner or had not heard of him, while 7% said the same of Mills.
The poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points, was conducted March 21-23, just a few days after Mills’ first attacks hit the airwaves. So it remains to be seen how much a sustained ad campaign could shift the race over the next 10 weeks.
