Warren also said Platner, who posted Reddit comments calling white rural Mainers ‘racist and stupid’ and covered up a tattoo of a Nazi symbol, would bring ‘accountability’ to Washington
PORTLAND, Maine—Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) campaigned Saturday alongside Graham Platner, the left-wing candidate in the Maine Democratic Senate primary who has praised Hamas and until recently sported a tattoo of a Nazi symbol. Warren said Platner “has the values” to serve in the upper chamber and would bring “accountability” to Washington, D.C.
Platner “is a man who not only has the values, but a man who believes in accountability, and we need a little accountability coming out of Washington right now,” Warren told attendees at a packed Holiday Inn ballroom. “Billionaires don’t want to pay taxes, and nobody in Washington will get in that fight. Well, Graham Platner’s gonna.”
Platner is no stranger to “accountability” in the sense that he has spent much of his campaign apologizing for Reddit posts in which he called white rural Mainers “racist and stupid,” asked why black people “don’t tip,” and blamed sexual assault victims for the own rapes. He has been less apologetic for a tattoo of a Totenkopf—a skull and crossbones symbol used by the Nazi SS secret police force—that he sported on his chest for years and covered up toward the beginning of his campaign. Platner has argued that the tattoo is “an eminently reasonable thing” because he did not know what the symbol meant before running for Senate; Platner’s associates say he is a history buff who referred to the ink as “my Totenkopf.” Platner has not apologized, meanwhile, for his 2014 comment praising a Hamas raid that killed five Israeli soldiers.
“Looks like an all around well executed and successful small unit raid to me,” Platner wrote. “Pragmatically I have little problem with killing an enemy combatant who you attempt to capture but for whatever reason cannot.”
HAPPENING NOW: Maine Dem Senate candidate Graham Platner rallies with Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
On the ground for @FreeBeacon pic.twitter.com/9OBhQCtUb1
— Jessica Costescu (@JessicaCostescu) April 19, 2026
Warren’s campaign appearance with Platner came as a slap in the face to Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), who lured Maine governor Janet Mills into the race on the theory that she would be more appealing to a general electorate than the baggage-laden Platner. Warren, the vice chair of the Senate Democratic conference, endorsed Platner—who has said he would not back Schumer for Democratic leader—in March, saying the Maine Democrat would “actually deliver change for working people in the Senate.”
A Platner victory in June’s Democratic primary—an outcome that seems increasingly likely, given that recent polls show Platner with a double-digit lead over Mills—would be a setback for Democratic attempts to retake the Senate, given incumbent Republican senator Susan Collins’s moderate bonafides and proven ability to win statewide. Platner outraised Mills and Collins in the first quarter of 2026—taking in $4.1 million to Collins’s more than $3 million and Mills’s $2.6 million—but Collins maintains a cash on hand advantage. Platner’s first quarter haul is down from the $4.6 million he raised at the end of 2025 and a far cry from the $27 million another first-time young Democratic candidate, James Talarico, raised in Texas.
Before Warren spoke, other politicians and activists took the stage. April Fournier, a Portland city councilor and Native American, told the crowd, “We need to get rid of, you know, the millionaires, and we need to bring the working class back.” That’s a step more aggressive than Platner, who attended an elite Connecticut boarding school and is the grandson of a world-famous architect known for “opulent” designs. Platner has kept his condemnations for billionaires.
“My people have been here since time immemorial, but this country was built on the backs of workers, of families, of students, and of the middle class, but it does everything to keep us out. And all of that wealth is held by the 1 percent and it’s not shared,” Fournier said. “The wealth should be shared, but also power should be shared. Not one person deserves to hold it all, and that’s what these wealthy elite are trying to do, and that has to stop.”
Another speaker, abortion and climate activist Zoe Reich, called Platner “a regular guy, perhaps radicalized by his own experiences, who wants to change our country for the better.” She quoted the activist Mariame Kaba, saying, “Let this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair.” Kaba authored the book No More Police: A Case for Abolition and aims to dismantle “the prison industrial complex.”
Sitting in the VIP section at Saturday’s rally was Deqa Dhalac, a Somali-born Maine state lawmaker named as a “person of interest” in a congressional fraud investigation. Platner called Dhalac a “good friend” while campaigning with her in January, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
The guests were a reflection of the Democratic Party’s far-left flank, though Warren praised a wide variety of her partymates, including socialist New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani and Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger, who ran for office as a moderate.
“We win when we back the candidates who have the courage to fight for the big changes … so that this country is not one that just works for a handful of billionaires at the top, but a country that works for working people everywhere,” Warren said. “You don’t have to take my word for it, on whether or not we can win on that. We’re already winning on that: Zohran Mamdani in New York, Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey.”
The Portland rally was not Platner’s only campaign stop of the weekend. At a Friday town hall held 45 miles south in York, Platner was confronted by a woman who asked him to respond to his Reddit posts blaming sexual assault victims for their own rapes: “I’m just wondering, did you have a particular come-to-Jesus moment, or was it just a bad day or what?”
Platner blamed his time in the military, saying the “infantry is a very hyper-masculine, frankly hyper-violent world.” He said his worldview began to shift while attending George Washington University, where he met female veterans who had experienced sexual assault.
In November, a sexual assault survivor similarly confronted Platner over his Reddit post asserting rape victims need to “take some responsibility for themselves.” The woman broke down as she asked whether he would show “true remorse” for the comment rather than “shallow words.”
Warren and Platner did not respond to requests for comment.
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