Democrats 'selling their soul' to embrace Platner are in for rude awakening with Maine voters: GOP lawmaker

Maine Republican state Sen. Trey Stewart is warning that Democrats are "selling their soul" by defending controversial Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner and that the Democratic Party is moving to a "dangerous place" if he wins a Senate seat in November.

"The voters care a lot," Stewart told Fox News Digital about the mounting criticisms of Platner, including deleted social posts where he described himself as a "communist" and "socialist," used alleged homophobic slurs, and disparaged the military.

"I think that he's a flash in the pan for right now amongst extreme liberal Democrats who can't see past defeating Susan Collins at any cost, and what they're really doing is selling their soul to somebody who has a tattoo that's affiliated with the Nazis on his chest, has made slanderous remarks, really pretty ugly and horrifying remarks about veterans who have been injured in combat, racist and bigoted statements that were misogynist, so literally everything that you hear the left trying to villainize the right about, he's actually guilty of and there's a track record of this."

Stewart said he is confident five-term incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins will remain "victorious" in "middle-of-the-road" Maine, despite Platner leading in the polls, saying that the Platner campaign is "not going to work" because "Maine people don't subscribe to that line of thinking that Mr. Platner does."

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"Susan Collins, who is one of, if not the most influential votes in the United States Senate, and certainly an incredible influence financially and otherwise for the state of Maine, is going to be victorious," he said. "That's because Maine, at the end of the day, is a middle-of-the-road state."

This isn’t the first time Collins has seen a progressive challenger surge in the polls. In 2020, Collins consistently trailed former Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon, sometimes by double digits in the polls, before ultimately winning re-election in one of the most expensive races in state history.

Stewart says that Maine voters typically reject both far-right and far-left candidates and that Platner's "extreme position is not going to be something that voters reward here in November."

Overall, Stewart said Democrats' "embarrassing" decision to stand behind Platner reflects where the party stands today as a whole and exposes a "soul-searching" problem within the party.

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"I find it highly embarrassing that this is where the Democrat party is, not just in the state of Maine, but across the country at this point, with the most extreme sort of tail-wagging-the-dog effect," he said. "Maybe that is the direction that the Democrat party in Maine and in our country is going," he said. "If it is, then ultimately that's going to be a very dangerous place for them and a very dangerous place for our country."

Platner, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, has faced a wave of scrutiny over his deleted Reddit posts and has been heavily criticized by Republicans who say he has not adequately explained or apologized for them.

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In a post from June 2019, Platner mocked a video of Purple Heart veteran Teddy Daniels being shot four times during a 2012 clash with Taliban fighters, saying Daniels "didn’t deserve to live."

Platner declined to apologize or acknowledge regret over the comment in a video taken by Fox News Digital over the weekend.

"This is not the right course of action that he should be taking," Stewart said. "If anything, he owes a number of apologies to the people who he has said highly offensive things to. But beyond that, certainly United States Senate is something that is completely out of grasp for an individual like this."

"He really just needs help," Stewart said. "He doesn't need a seat in the United States Senate."

Fox News Digital reached out to the Platner campaign for comment.

Following Democratic Gov. Janet Mills' announcement to end her campaign for Senate last month, Platner became the Democrats’ presumptive nominee in the June 9 primary to decide who will face Collins in November.