Platner Suspends Senate Campaign [semi-satire]

Semi-News/Semi-Satire ^ | 12 July 2026 | John Semmens

[John Semmens]

Graham Platner announced he is "suspending my campaign to be the next US Senator from Maine. Despite winning the Democratic primary last month with 150,000 votes--more than any other candidate in Maine's history--wealthy donors are demanding I step aside. The campaign of smears--that I am a Nazi, that I sent unsolicited photos of my penis to women, that I sexually abused other women--failed to deter voters from choosing me to be the Party's nominee. Now these potential donors are saying they won't provide any money for my campaign to continue to November. They will only donate if another person is gifted the nomination without having to win it."

"Fortunately, the movement for a democratic socialist America will have candidates who are permitted to be on the ballot elsewhere," Platner observed. "In New York, Darializa Avila Chevalier, a socialist who called for the eradication of Western civilization and seizing the means of production, won the Democrat primary for the state's 13th Congressional District. Also in New York, Aber Kawas, who pointed out that capitalism, racism and Islamophobia are what led up to the 9/11 attack on America, won Democrat primary for a New York State Senate seat. In Colorado, Melat Kiros — who blamed America for destabilizing the Middle East and causing the 9/11 attacks on America, won the Democrat primary for Colorado's 1st Congressional District. In New Jersey, Adam Hamaway who helped support al-Qaida and testified in defense of the man convicted for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing won the Democrat primary for New Jersey's 12th Congressional District."

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) congratulated himself for not endorsing Platner when he was leading in the Democrat primary polls, saying "I dodged the media pressure to take a position on Platner, but promised we would beat Senator Collins (R-Maine) in November. Unlike Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif) I didn't besmirch my reputation by endorsing the guy with the Nazi tattoo. Instead, I worked quietly behind the scenes with our Party's big donors to help us get rid of Platner by getting them to refuse to donate to his general election campaign. Today I'm pleased to my efforts paid off."

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TOPICS: Government; History; Humor; Politics
KEYWORDS: demagogicparty; democrats; grahamplatner; maine; money; satire; schumer; susancollins

[Steven Scharf]

Despite winning the Democratic primary last month with 150,000 votes—more than any other candidate in Maine’s history

I don’t have time to do the reseach to fact check this, but I will note several things.

Maine has only allowed unenrolled voters to vote in a party primary since the last cycle (2024). There was no senate race last cycle. The Presidental primary was in March and I don’t believe it allowed unenrolleds to vote. We do not yet know how many unenrolleds voted in the primaries or how many voted in each.

Population of Maine: 1,414,874
Platner Votes: 156,084
Percentage of the population: 11.03%

Population of Maine: 1,414,874
Most recent Democrat enrollment: 305,364
Percentage of the population: 21.58%

His “mandate” comes from just 11% of the population of Maine. Until we get the unerolled counts, we cannot back them out of his numbers to show how many actual enrolled democrats may have voted for him.

I also do not have the final absentee ballot counts which show which ballots unenrolled voters asked for.

I did this quick anaylsis just before the primary.

As of the Friday before election day, the accepted ballots count was:
Unenrolled requesting a party ballot: 12,135
Democrat: 9,175
Republican: 2,956

Total Democrat Ballots: 47,386 - 9,175 unenrolled = 38,211 Democrat absentee voters
Total Republican Ballots: 17,798 - 2,956 unenrolled = 14,842 Democrat absentee voters

So about 19.4% of dem vote were unerolled and 16.6% of the republican vote were unerolled as of June 4, 2026. The Friday file was generated early in the morning.