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Voters are casting ballots in primary elections Tuesday in Maine, one of a handful states that could decide which party controls the Senate after this year's midterm elections. Democrats believe they have their best shot in years to unseat Republican Senator Susan Collins, but their presumptive nominee has been mired in controversy.
Graham Platner is a 41-year-old oyster farmer and Marine veteran who entered the race as a populist progressive. Democratic Governor Janet Mills, who was urged to run by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, suspended her campaign in April amid polls predicting Platner would easily beat her — though she remains on the ballot. Platner's past, however, has cast a shadow on his campaign. The initial controversies focused on offensive posts Platner made on Reddit years ago and on a tattoo on his chest that resembled a Nazi symbol, which he has since apologized for and covered up. In recent weeks, sexually explicit text messages came to light that Platner had sent to women after getting married in 2023. The New York Times then reported that several women who had dated Platner recalled "unsettling" and abusive behavior by him, which he has denied.
For more, we speak with Kim Villanueva, national president of the National Organization for Women PAC, which supports Mills in the primary, and Maine resident Shay Stewart-Bouley, executive director of Community Change, Inc., who says Platner is speaking to people's material concerns and that voters may be "forgiving" for his "messy" personal life.
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The president has not yet endorsed Representative Mike Collins or Derek Dooley, a former football coach, in the race to challenge the Democratic senator, Jon Ossoff.
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Two senior Republicans urged the Trump administration to prepare for the possible expiration of a contentious intelligence-gathering authority.
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 Tom Williams//CQ-Roll CallMore than 100 Republican officials who support Kamala Harris for president plan to join the vice president in Pennsylvania on Wednesday for a stunning public rebuke of Donald Trump, their own party's presidential candidate.
"He just cannot be in the Oval Office again," former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA) told the Daily Beast Tuesday night during her drive up to the Keystone State for the event. And she predicted: Harris will prevail.
"I think there's a silent majority," she said. "I think there's a silent group of women who will crawl over broken glass to vote against Trump and who will quietly vote for Harris."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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