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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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Many are sticking by the presumptive Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner. But some have soured, and others are anxious about how recent revelations could affect a close race.
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U.S. President Donald Trump is in Beijing for a highly anticipated summit with his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping. It is the first U.S. state visit to China since 2017, during Trump's first administration. Trade, the Iran war, artificial intelligence and the fate of Taiwan are some of the issues being discussed, although it's not clear if any new agreements are likely. Trump traveled to China with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, along with a delegation of top U.S. executives including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Elon Musk of Tesla and Jensen Huang of Nvidia.
The summit comes after years of rising hostility between the two superpowers, but leaders recognize the importance of improving the bilateral relationship, says Zhao Hai, director of international political studies at the Institute of World Economics and Politics in Beijing. "This is a very critical historical moment [at] a crossroad, and both sides now are working together to establish a stable relationship that will have a global ramification," he says.
We also speak with Jake Werner, a historian of modern China and director of the East Asia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He says the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and the resulting economic chaos have strengthened China's position.
"China has ties to all the countries in the region. It has acted in the past to help broker the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran," says Werner. "So it has some experience in this realm, sort of acting as a broker towards peace."
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