Chuck Schumer could taste a Senate majority.
But Schumer got hit with the worst news ever.
And Chuck Schumer got sucker punched by the last person he suspected.
Who Is Graham Platner?
Democrats can’t win the Senate unless Graham Platner defeats Republican incumbent Susan Collins in Maine.
Platner is a 41-year-old oyster farmer and Marine Corps veteran running to unseat U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) in the 2026 midterms. He pushed out two-term Maine Governor Janet Mills, who dropped her own Senate bid after trailing Platner by as much as 30 points in some primary polls. Progressive Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both backed him throughout the primary.
On paper, the pitch sounds almost clever. Platner talks like a New Deal Democrat, looks nothing like a coastal elite, and spent years farming oysters on the Maine waterfront before jumping into politics. His entire political experience before this race was serving as harbormaster of Sullivan, Maine — a town of roughly 1,300 people.
But the baggage is real. Platner covered up a tattoo that critics linked to Nazi imagery. He posted on Reddit in 2021 that he had “become a communist.” He also affiliated himself with Antifa — and according to U.S. Senator John Fetterman (D-PA), none of that is Republican spin.
Fetterman Called It What It Is
“I mean, in Maine, for example, Graham Platner, he’s an avowed communist. He described himself as a communist. Antifa, that’s not a slur from me. That’s not a GOP kind of hit. That’s his own words, how he described that,” Fetterman said in an interview with Reason magazine.
Fetterman — who is pretending to be a Trump supporter because he faces re-election in a red-leaning state in 2028 — nonetheless hit on something real here. The Democrat Party’s own nominating process keeps producing candidates that most working Americans would never vote for if they understood what they were actually getting. Fetterman is a reliable Democrat vote who supports abortion-on-demand until birth, gun control, amnesty for illegal aliens, and transgender surgeries for kids. But even he can see that running a self-described communist for Senate in Maine is a losing proposition.
And now the Washington Post’s editorial board agrees.
The Washington Post Drops the Hammer
The Post’s editorial board tore into Platner’s newly unveiled energy plan — called “Take Back American Power” — calling it a prime example of his tendency to respond to voters’ real concerns with government fantasies.
“The Senate hopeful is long on anger and short on real solutions,” the subheadline of the editorial read.
The plan calls for a four-year freeze on electricity rates, a windfall tax on big oil profits, and ending collection of the federal gas tax. Platner wants to invoke the Defense Production Act to push companies to build government-approved energy technologies, and he wants a federally backed loan program for energy projects on top of that.
The board wasn’t buying any of it. “Artificially putting a ceiling on what people pay will discourage the production of more energy without discouraging its use. In other words, it’s a recipe for shortages,” the editorial stated.
That’s Economics 101. Price controls don’t lower costs — they destroy supply. Every country that has tried them has eventually learned this lesson the hard way, usually after the shelves go empty.
But Platner keeps pitching them anyway, and the Democrat base keeps cheering.
The Real Problem With His Energy Plan
The Post’s editorial board pointed out that the actual solution to high energy costs is making it easier to build — not piling on more government mandates and price controls. “People living in Texas… pay less than half of what Californians do for energy per kilowatt hour,” the editorial stated, noting that Platner’s plan completely ignores deregulation as a tool.
That gap between Texas and California isn’t an accident. Texas has a competitive energy market. California has decades of green mandates, regulatory red tape, and government interference that have driven costs through the roof. Platner’s plan would drag Maine closer to the California model — and Maine residents are already paying some of the highest energy costs in the country.
The board argued that Platner’s proposals relied too heavily on government intervention, price controls, and federal financing while doing little to address the underlying barriers to energy production. And they concluded with a line that stings: “Platner’s plan has little chance of becoming reality anytime soon, which is good news for residents already hurting from the anti-growth policies he wants to turbocharge.”
Good news for residents. That’s a brutal way for a left-leaning editorial board to describe a Democrat Senate candidate’s signature policy proposal.
The Bigger Picture
The editorial board also didn’t let the Nazi tattoo slide. “These extreme policy proposals deserve as much scrutiny as his covered-up Nazi tattoo,” the board wrote. That’s not a throwaway line. The Post was making the point that Platner’s character controversies and his policy proposals both deserve serious scrutiny — and neither holds up well under examination.
And the Post called his campaign themes what they are: “punish[ing] big business” while handing more control of the economy to government bureaucrats.
But here’s the thing worth sitting with. Platner is currently leading Senator Collins in head-to-head polling. The Democrat base in Maine is enthusiastic. Chuck Schumer’s super PAC is already running ads in the state. The national left has decided this is their guy — Nazi tattoo, communist Reddit posts, and all.
So the Washington Post editorial board can write all the sober editorials it wants. The progressive machine is going to keep pushing Platner because the Democrat Party’s primary voters don’t want pragmatic — they want ideological purity and a candidate who sounds angry enough to match their mood.
What Platner’s energy plan really tells you is that this is a candidate who has never had to make a payroll, balance a budget, or answer to anyone for the consequences of his ideas. Freezing electricity rates sounds great at a town hall. But somewhere between the applause and the policy implementation, the lights go out.
Senator Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee and has delivered nearly $1.5 billion in federal funding for Maine since earmarks were restored in 2021, has actually shown what it looks like to get results for a state. Platner’s plan, by contrast, reads like something drafted by someone who has spent more time on Reddit than in a room where decisions have real consequences.
Maine voters will have to decide what they want more — a senator with real power and a track record, or a self-described communist with a covered-up tattoo and a plan that even the Washington Post says is a recipe for shortages.
Sources: Fox News Digital; Washington Post editorial board, “Graham Platner’s unserious energy plan,” May 14, 2026; Reason magazine interview with Sen. John Fetterman, May 13, 2026; Maine Public Radio; Sun Journal; WABI-TV; Wikipedia/Graham Platner; CNBC; Washington Times.