Prediction-market traders have lowered their expectations for Democrats in Maine’s U.S. Senate race in recent days, even as public polling continues to show likely Democratic nominee Graham Platner leading five-time Republican Senator Susan Collins.
On May 23, Polymarket gave the Democratic candidate a 78 percent implied chance of winning the race. By Wednesday morning, that figure had fallen to 68 percent, before rising to 73 percent on Thursday morning. Kalshi showed a similar decline, with Democratic odds dropping from 72.1 percent on May 22 to 66 percent Thursday morning.
The shift comes as Platner, a 41-year-old oyster farmer and former Marine who is widely viewed as the favorite to win the Democratic primary on June 9, faces renewed scrutiny over a tattoo critics said resembled a Nazi-linked symbol and over deleted Reddit posts first reported last year.
All of which complicate what Democrats view as one of their top pickup opportunities in the midterm elections.
Tattoo and Reddit Posts Draw Renewed Attention
On Monday, Democratic Representative Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts declined to endorse Platner, calling attention to his tattoo that critics said resembled the Totenkopf, or “death’s head,” a symbol used by the Nazi SS—for which Platner has previously apologized.
Newsweek contacted Platner’s campaign by email for comment.
He previously told Newsweek: “I absolutely would not have gone through life having this on my chest if I knew that—and to insinuate that I did is disgusting. I am already planning to get this removed.”
But Auchincloss said the tattoo, and Platner’s commentary about it, should be “personally disqualifying.”
He told CNN: “I hope Maine voters agree with me. I think it would be a mistake for the Democratic Party to think Graham Platner’s brand of the Democratic Party is what wins us durable majorities throughout this country.”
Platner said he had gotten the tattoo in Split, Croatia, in 2006, while “very inebriated.”
There has also been renewed attention on the former Marine’s deleted Reddit posts. In one, Platner said he “became older and became a communist.” In another, in response to a person who posted that White people “aren’t as racist or stupid as Trump thinks,” he replied: “Living in white rural America, I’m afraid to tell you they actually are.”
Platner addressed the posts, which were first reported by CNN in October 2025, by telling Politico at the time: “I made dumb jokes and picked fights. But of course I’m not a socialist. I’m a small business owner, a Marine Corps veteran, and a retired s*** poster.”
He also told the Portland Press Herald in October: “A lot of it isn’t even things I believed then…A lot of them are just stupid joke comments. I look back now and I don’t mean to be flippant, but it was just dumb stuff on the internet, and when I stopped being lonely and isolated I didn’t use that as an outlet anymore.”
But on May 11, local outlet The Maine Monitor published what it said was the full archive of Platner’s posts, reportedly made when he was between 24 and 37. These include posts that vary in tone and subject matter, being sometimes offensive and sometimes contradictory; several have been used in Republican attack ads by super PACs aligned with Senator Collins, reported The Maine Monitor.
On May 23, when Polymarket had Democrats at a 78 percent chance of winning in Maine, a Fox News Digital report said Platner had described the Army as “full of fat, lazy trash who would rather not be in uniform” in a March 2019 post.
Another report from the same outlet mentioned a post from June 2019 under a thread titled “Old footage of US soldier taking machine gun fire in Afghanistan 2012,” which read: “This video never gets old. Dumb motherf****** didn’t deserve to live. At least his stupidity and fat a** wheezing are available for all future infantrymen to witness and hold in contempt. Poor marksmanship on the Taliban’s part is the only reason this mouthbreather made it home.”
Newsweek has found the same posts in The Maine Monitor‘s database. Newsweek has contacted Platner by email outside of regular office hours on Thursday morning for comment on the Reddit posts.
Joni Ernst, a Republican senator from Iowa, told Fox News Digital: “Mocking servicemembers for getting wounded or killed is absolutely despicable. These are our brothers and sisters, people who volunteered to put everything on the line for this country.”
What Have the Polls Said?
A recent poll from Pan Atlantic Research—the first since Democratic Governor Janet Mills ended her Senate campaign last month—showed Platner with an advantage. He led Collins by 7 points, with support from 48 percent of respondents compared to the Republican senator’s 41 percent. Eleven percent said they were still undecided.
It surveyed 827 likely voters from May 8-18 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
His lead was the same in a recent Emerson College poll, where 48 percent of respondents said they would back Platner compared to 41 percent for Collins. It surveyed 1,075 likely voters March 21-23 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Those findings built on a previous Pan Atlantic Research poll, conducted February 13-March 2, which showed Platner up by 4 points at 44 percent to Collins’ 40 percent in a head-to-head matchup.
Maine Is Top Democratic Target
While Collins, a moderate who spoke out against President Donald Trump during his first term, has represented Maine since 1997, the Democratic Party has made inroads there. The state backed former Vice President Kamala Harris by 7 points last year and former President Joe Biden won it by 9 points in 2020.
But Collins is still viewed as a formidable opponent. In 2020, when Collins was most recently up for reelection, she beat former Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon, a Democrat, with 51 percent of the vote. However, this was a smaller margin than when she won her 2014 reelection with a 37-point margin.
In the Democratic primary, David Costello, a former Maryland Department of the Environment official, is running, while Democrat Andrea LaFlamme has launched a write-in campaign. But neither has put up strong showings in polls.
Maine’s Democratic primary is scheduled to take place in June 2026, with the general election set for November 2026.
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