Maine Dem Senate candidate latest to have campaign beset by past remarks about political violence

Maine Democrat Senate candidate and oyster farmer Graham Platner has disavowed his since-deleted posts promoting political violence.

Platner, who's competing in the 2026 state Democratic Party primary for the opportunity to try to unseat long-time GOP Sen. Susan Collins, wrote several Reddit posts in 2018 promoting violence as a necessary means to achieving social change, POLITICO reported Thursday.

In two of the since-deleted posts, Platner wrote that if people “expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history,” and that “an armed working class is a requirement for economic justice.”

Platner, who is a 41-year-old former Marine and combat veteran, called himself a “communist” and said that “all” police are b-stards in other deleted posts. 

The Reddit posts were removed three months ago, shortly before he launched his Senate campaign.

In recent weeks, Jay Jones, a Virginia Democrat running to become the state's attorney general, has had his campaign set back by the discovery of 2022 texts in which he envisioned the murder of the state's Republican House speaker at the time. 

Platner said he rejects the label “liberal,” and is running on several progressive policies, such as universal health care and restricted arms sales to Israel. He has hired Democratic strategist Morris Katz, who also works with Democratic New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist.

Platner did not dispute that he wrote the posts in a statement to POLITICO, but disavowed their violent rhetoric.

“As I told CNN, I was f-cking around on the internet at a time when I felt lost and very disillusioned with our government who sent me overseas to watch my friends die,” Platner said. “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 sh-tposter.”

Platner is an Iraq and Afghanistan War veteran and has been endorsed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and three influential labor unions, including the United Auto Workers.