Jordan Wood is calling on Graham Platner to drop out of the U.S. Senate race.
That comes amid a flood of revelations that have shaken Platner’s insurgent bid to take on Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins next November.
This week a video of Platner surfaced showing him with a tattoo depicting a skull superimposed over crossbones, similar to the Totenkopf symbol adopted by the Nazi SS during World War II. Before that, his campaign was contending with the fallout from numerous deleted Reddit posts in which Platner asked why Black people “don’t tip” and suggesting that women concerned about rape not drink around certain people, among others.
“Graham Platner’s Reddit comments and Nazi SS Totenkopf tattoo are disqualifying and not who we are as Mainers or as Democrats. With Donald Trump and his sycophants demonizing Americans, spewing hate, and running roughshod over the Constitution, Democrats need to be able to condemn Trump’s actions with moral clarity. Graham Platner no longer can,” Wood, a Democrat also running for the party’s nomination to face off against Collins, said in a Wednesday statement.
Wood, a former vice president of End Citizens United, announced his bid in April.
Platner, a 41-year-old oyster farmer from Sullivan, denies knowing that his tattoo was a Nazi symbol. He has said he got the tattoo in 2007 while deployed abroad with the U.S. Marines. While on leave, Platner and other Marines went to Croatia, where they got “very inebriated” and decided to get tattoos. He said that they all picked “terrifying” designs off the wall.
Platner has further denied allegations from former state Rep. Genevieve McDonald, who resigned Friday from serving as Platner’s political director, that he knew the tattoo was problematic weeks ago. He told The Associated Press that he is getting the tattoo covered.
Platner, who has support from unions and an endorsement from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, made waves in August when he announced that he would challenge Collins in the 2026 November election.
Even before these recent revelations, he already faced an uphill battle against Collins, who plans to run for a historic sixth term next year. She has handily beaten back challengers, including in 2020 when she defied polls and expectations to eke out a fifth term in the Senate. Despite that, Collins, once ranked the country’s most bipartisan senator, has seen her popularity slump since Trump’s first term in the White House.
The oysterman also has to contend with a primary fight against Gov. Janet Mills, who launched her campaign last week with the support of national Democrats.
