His controversies include a Nazi tattoo. Why Democrats are still standing by Senate candidate Graham Platner

For Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky, a person with a Nazi tattoo on their chest should be disqualified as a candidate for political office.

But that tattoo, along with a series of other controversies that have dogged Senate candidate Graham Platner, has not been enough to dissuade most Democratic voters in Maine from supporting him.

On Tuesday, Platner, a 41-year-old oyster farmer and military veteran, won a decisive victory in the Maine Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. He will now face longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins in this November’s midterm elections.

For many Democrats, the removal of Collins is the central focus, meaning Platner’s political baggage may be put aside if he is the vehicle through which the five-term Republican senator can finally be unseated.

“Yeah, I have a problem with this guy. I have a massive problem with this guy. 100 per cent,” Roginsky told CBC News. “If I were still a Maine voter, I would not have voted for him [on Tuesday].”

Yet, if given the choice between Platner and Collins, Roginsky said she would “enthusiastically vote against” Collins and would have to vote for Platner. Collins, she said, supported Supreme Court justices who ended up overturning the constitutional right to abortion and limiting access to reproductive care.

“I tremendously resent that I’m being put in a position to have to make that choice,” she said.

That choice — whether to support Platner — seems to remain an issue for a significant number of Democrats despite his victory on Tuesday night, Roginsky said.

While he received more than 70 per cent of the vote, he ran largely unopposed. His main rival had been Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, who backed out of the race earlier this year, citing trouble raising enough funds. That means 30 per cent of the Democratic voters decided they would not or could not cast a ballot for him, Roginsky noted.

‘Uncomfortable with his backstory’

“He should be concerned, and the people around him should be concerned that Democrats, at least a large number of Democrats … are sending a message to him that they were uncomfortable with his backstory,” she said.

That backstory includes a skull-and-crossbones designed tattoo, recognized as a Nazi symbol, that Platner got in 2013 while in the Marines. He has repeatedly said he was unaware of the symbol’s association or what it stood for and has since had the tattoo covered with a different design.

The symbol, however, is just one of the issues connected to his past. He has a history of Reddit posts that have included comments in which he appeared to endorse political violence and dismiss rape in the military.

‘Was at my absolute worst’

Platner has apologized for the comments, saying he was struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression when he wrote them and was “in a pretty dark place.”

“A lot of the worst comments come from the years where I was at my absolute worst,” he told The New York Times in May.

Other reports have since emerged that he previously exchanged sexually explicit text messages with several women while married, which Platner hasn’t directly denied.

The New York Times also published allegations from some of Platner’s ex-girlfriends who said they found his actions intimidating and disturbing. One said he could be rough with her and described an incident in which she said he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed so she could not get out.

Platner told the Times and other media outlets that while he was far from being the “perfect boyfriend,” any allegations he acted violently toward a girlfriend were not true.

Those allegations are particularly troubling for Roginsky, who became a prominent figure in the #MeToo movement following her claims of sexual harassment against former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes.

“I’m hard pressed to understand why we have to elevate somebody with this history of treating women,” said Roginsky.

The 41-year-old Platner became a political darling among the progressive wing of the Democratic party, and particularly among young people, as a working class, anti-establishment candidate focused on cost-of-living issues.

His political rise can be traced partly to his own personal history, said Mark Brewster, professor and chair of the political science department at the University of Maine.

His campaign has presented him as someone who served his country, came back from that service, struggled and found a way through, Brewster said.

“There’s that story of a kind of personal growth and redemption that in some ways Americans are suckers for. That’s definitely part of it.”

Platner is also considered a very charismatic and gifted speaker, with an ability to energize crowds with his plainspoken speeches.

‘Checks all those boxes’

Brewster said Platner is the kind of candidate Democrats have been looking for: someone who is not the typical politician, but an anti-establishment figure willing to “go out there and shake things up and and tear things down.”

“Platner checks all those boxes,” he said.

As for his past comments and actions, many supporters see them as things he did “when he was in a really bad part of his life,” said James Melcher, a political science professor at the University of Maine Farmington.

“His supporters really weren’t shaken by them for the most part,” Melcher said. “His supporters really kind of doubled down. ‘Yeah, he’s authentic. He’s real. He’s been through a lot of things.'”

Perhaps most significantly, some Democrats consider winning the Maine Senate seat so important for Democratic control of the Senate that they are willing to overlook or gloss over some of Platner’s controversies, Brewster said.

Democratic strategist Christy Selzer said that “Platner’s challenges, no matter how deep, are small compared to those created each day by the Trump administration, which has Senator Collins’ steadfast support.”

“Flawed candidate (Platner) versus supporter of the end of democracy (Collins) seems like an easy call,” she said in an email to CBC News.

“To be clear, though, he has a lot of work to do.”