Unpacking Graham Platner’s Nazi-Tattoo Controversy

Over the summer, you might have seen a campaign ad for Graham Platner, the rural Maine native and Marine veteran hoping to unseat Republican Susan Collins in the Senate. Platner seemed like a rising star on the left — he espoused ideas like universal health care, he was anti-CEO and pro-union, and he gestured toward a condemnation of Israel. Earlier this month, he announced he had raised more than $4 million for his campaign. Could it really happen? Could a previously unknown oyster farmer really unseat a Republican senator who has been in office for almost 30 years? Well, maybe keep dreaming, folks. Platner’s campaign has suffered multiple controversies in the past few weeks — the most recent being that he seems to have a Nazi tattoo on his chest. Hmm. Not great! Here’s what we know about Platner, his tattoo, and where his campaign stands today.

Who is Graham Platner?

Platner is an oyster farmer and former Marine who was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan for several combat tours from 2003 to 2016. Currently, he’s running for the Senate from Maine, where he hopes to help the Democrats gain some ground in the 2026 midterms by unseating Susan Collins. In August, Platner announced his campaign with an introductory video that highlighted his working-class bona fides and leftist ideals. He is also 40 years old and ruggedly handsome, which doesn’t hurt.

My name is Graham Platner and I’m running for US Senate to defeat Susan Collins and topple the oligarchy that’s destroying our country.

I’m a veteran, oysterman, and working class Mainer who’s seen this state become unlivable for working people. And that makes me deeply angry. pic.twitter.com/QZfAm528N1

— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) August 19, 2025

Since then, Platner has gotten a profile in The New Yorker, continued to put out social content that spread far beyond Portland and Bangor, and even earned himself a Bernie Sanders endorsement. For a while, things seemed to be going pretty well. Did he spend six months in 2018 working for Constellis (f.k.a. Blackwater), the private military contractor the left generally agrees upon as evil? Yes, but according to his spokesperson, Platner “left after becoming completely disillusioned with America’s deeply failed foreign policy and endless wars.” So he was still saying all the right things.

Were there scandals before the tattoo thing?

Earlier this month, CNN reported on Platner’s old Reddit account, which was deleted prior to the launch of his campaign. Under the handle “P-Hustle,” Platner appears to have referred to himself as a communist and stated that “all” police officers are “bastards.” He told CNN that he was just “fucking around on the internet” and that he didn’t want people to “see me for who I was in my worst internet comment.”

It turned out those were not actually his worst internet comments. Following CNN’s report, more posts of Platner’s surfaced. According to Bangor Daily News, he replied to a 2013 post that asked users, “What is one question you have always wanted to ask someone of another race?” He reportedly questioned, “Why don’t black people tip?” before adding, “I work as a bartender and it always amazes me how solid this stereotype is. Every now and again a black patron will leave a 15-20% tip, but usually it [is] between 0-5%. There’s got to be a reason behind it, what is it?”

Also in 2013, Platner reportedly responded to a post about underwear designed to prevent sexual assault. “Holy fuck, how about people just take some responsibility for themselves and not get so fucked up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to,” he wrote. “Rape is a real thing. If you’re so worried about it to buy Kevlar underwear you’d think you might not get blacked out fucked up around people you aren’t comfortable with.”

While this scandal didn’t seem to rock the boat that much, Platner still made a video addressing his old posts. He said the worst of them came from the period of his life right after being in the Army, when he “still had the crude humor, dark feelings, [and] offensive language that really was a hallmark of the infantry when I was in it.” He described feeling “disillusioned” and “alienated” during this time of his life and said he went online to “post stupid things and get in fights and find some form of community in some way.” Platner said he stopped posting on Reddit once he found a real-life community back in his hometown of Sullivan, Maine.

What’s the deal with his tattoo?

Right, well, if you can forgive him for some problematic Reddit posting, just wait. Platner does seem to have a Nazi tattoo: He has on his chest what appears to be a Totenkopf, a particular style of skull and crossbones used by Hitler’s SS. How do we know this? He told us.

On Monday, Platner appeared on Pod Save America with Tommy Vietor and shared a video of himself shirtless lip-syncing to Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” at his brother’s wedding. In the video, you can pretty clearly see the tattoo, and it does look like a Totenkopf. Platner, presumably trying to get ahead of the story, explained to Vietor that he “got very inebriated” with his Marine buddies while on shore leave in Croatia in 2007 and “decided to get a tattoo.” He said they picked a “terrifying looking” skull and crossbones off the wall of the tattoo shop, presumably unaware that the design strongly resembled Nazi imagery. “Skull and crossbones are [a] pretty standard military thing,” he said.

NEW: Graham Platner reacts to recently resurfaced video of him singing shirtless at a wedding and an opposition research attack alleging he's a "secret nazi." Full interview out now on the Pod Save America YouTube. pic.twitter.com/r8GEePCPLP

— Pod Save America (@PodSaveAmerica) October 21, 2025

“At no point in this entire experience of my life did anybody ever once say, ‘Hey, you’re a Nazi,’” Platner told Vietor. Platner joined the Army National Guard, which bans tattoos that are “extremist, racist, sexist, or otherwise indecent,” after graduating from college, and he told Vietor he got “a security clearance and a full screen” without any mention of his. “It never came up until we got wind that in the opposition research, somebody was shopping the idea that I was a secret Nazi with a hidden Nazi tattoo,” he said.

Are we supposed to believe he really had no idea this whole time?

That is certainly what he claims. He reiterated the sentiment in a statement to Politico on Tuesday, saying, “It was not until I started hearing from reporters and D.C. insiders that I realized this tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol.” He added, “I absolutely would not have gone through life having this on my chest if I knew that — and to insinuate that I did is disgusting. I am already planning to get this removed.”

Whether that is actually the case is a different story. Platner’s former campaign director, Genevieve McDonald, who resigned after Platner’s Reddit posts became public, came forward to weigh in on the tattoo situation. In a Facebook post, she wrote that she suspects the candidate was well aware of what the tattoo means. “Graham has an anti-Semitic tattoo on his chest,” she wrote. “He’s not an idiot, he’s a military history buff. Maybe he didn’t know it when he got it, but he got it years ago and he should have had it covered up because he knows damn well what it means.”

Jewish Insider later reported that an acquaintance of Platner’s from his time living in D.C. said he definitely knew what the tattoo meant. “He said, ‘Oh, this is my Totenkopf,’” the source said. “He said it in a cutesy little way.”

So what now?

Platner remains in the race for the time being, though it’s hard to see how he overcomes all of this. Senate Republicans immediately pounced on him for the tattoo, which is a little rich coming from the party of racist group chats and Pete Hegseth’s own questionable ink.

Senator Sanders, who is Jewish, said on Tuesday that he will continue to support Platner. “I personally think he is an excellent candidate. I’m going to support him and look forward to him becoming the next senator in the state of Maine,” he told CNN reporter Manu Raju.

On Wednesday, Platner told the Associated Press that he got the tattoo covered up shortly after it became news. “Going to a tattoo removal place is going to take a while,” he said. “I wanted this thing off my body.” Ahead of an interview airing on Wednesday night, a journalist for WGME, a local Maine CBS affiliate, shared photos of Platner’s tattoo cover-up. It looks like … some kind of dog?

We just sat down with Graham Platner to talk about his previous online comments, and the now-infamous tattoo. He gave us a first look at the cover-up tattoo he had done just last night, and spoke candidly about the controversies surrounding him now. That's tonight at 5. @WGME pic.twitter.com/YIfV39D5Bd

— WGME Photojournalist ???????? (@MENewsPhotog) October 22, 2025

If Platner is not savvy enough to weather this storm — and frankly, who would be? — who are Maine Democrats left with? That would be 77-year-old Establishment candidate Governor Janet Mills. She does not have the support of Sanders, but one person in her corner is everyone’s favorite Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer. Isn’t everything just so amazing?