‘I Am Not a Secret Nazi’: Graham Platner Tattoo Controversy Roils Maine Senate Race

Embattled Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner found himself in the middle of another controversy Tuesday when a video surfaced showing a tattoo on his chest that appeared to portray imagery commonly associated with neo-Nazi groups.

In response, Platner, an oyster farmer who is running to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, denied that he was a “secret Nazi” and said he got the ink while on a drunken trip to Croatia during his time in the U.S. Marines.

“We got very inebriated, and we did what Marines on liberty do, and we decided to go get a tattoo. We went to a tattoo parlor in Split, Croatia. We chose a terrifying-looking skull and crossbones off the wall … a pretty standard military thing,” Platner said on a Tuesday episode of “Pod Save America.” “At no point in this entire experience of my life did anybody ever once say, ‘Hey, you’re a Nazi.’ It never came up.”

The controversy immediately threatened to roil the competitive primary for Maine’s Democratic Senate nomination, in which Platner is set to face off against former Gov. Janet Mills and former Capitol Hill aide Jordan Wood. Democrats see the race as one of their best chances to flip a red seat during the 2026 midterm elections.

The video, first reported by The Bangor Daily News on Tuesday, shows Platner dancing shirtless at his brother’s wedding about a decade ago. On Platner’s chest appears a baseball-size tattoo of a distinctly designed skull and crossbones, which the outlet reports is commonly associated with Nazi groups.

The tattoo, advocacy groups have said, resembles a Nazi Totenkopf tattoo. German for “death’s head,” the Totenkopf symbol is associated with the Nazi Schutzstaffel, commonly known as the SS, a paramilitary group that contributed to the horrors of the Holocaust.

“If true, it is troubling that a candidate for high office would have one,” Jessica Cohen, a spokesperson for the antisemitism group Anti-Defamation League, told The Bangor Daily News. “We do understand that sometimes people get tattoos without understanding their hateful association. In those cases, the bearer should be asked whether they repudiate its hateful meaning.”

It’s not the first controversy faced by Platner’s campaign. CNN first reported on Friday a series of Reddit posts made by Platner between 2013 and 2021 — and deleted before his campaign — in which he called himself a “communist,” referred to law enforcement officers as “bastards” and downplayed the severity sexual assault reports.

Platner issued a five-minute video statement apologizing for his Reddit comments on Friday, explaining his posts as an attempt at getting a rise out of the internet. The same day, his campaign’s political director, former state Rep. Genevieve McDonald, resigned.

“That was me trying to get a rise out of people on the Internet,” Platner said about the Reddit posts. “Those weren’t even reflective of my opinions back then.”

“I didn’t know what I was talking about,” he continued. “Very soon after, actually, this time frame, when I started going to college, I became very close friends with a number of vets — female vets at George Washington, and all of them had a story. And I very quickly changed my tune.”

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, McDonald alleged Platner had to have been aware of the insignia’s meaning.

“Graham has an anti-Semitic tattoo on his chest. He’s not an idiot, he’s a military history buff,” McDonald posted. “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.”

“This is seriously the dumbest timeline,” the post continued. “The vault is open for the GOP to fucking crush any dreams we had in the general and literally everyone I know is fighting with each other on social media. We cannot be this painfully stupid.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders, who strongly backed Platner earlier this month, said the revelations about Platner do not impact his endorsement.

“He went through a dark period,” Sanders told reporters on Tuesday. “He has apologized for the stupid remarks, the hurtful remarks that he made, and I’m confident that he’s going to run a great campaign and that he’s going to win.”

Vermont Sen. Peter Welch also told NOTUS on Tuesday that he is confident “Mainers will figure it out.”

Cynthia Phinney, president of the Maine AFL-CIO, said she had not seen reports about Platner’s tattoo and the controversy surrounding it. But she made clear she thought the negative news about Platner was a result of meddling from the national Democratic Party.

“I’m disappointed with the apparent engagement of the national party in our state primary the way this is coming out,” Phinney said.

Phinney said that she didn’t have proof that the national party was behind the emergence of a series of damaging news stories about his campaign but that she thought the “mudslinging” was unhelpful regardless of its source.

“I don’t think this is adding to the quality of what people are getting to think about in the campaign,” she said. “The important thing to me is to replace Suan Collins.”

When asked about the reports, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer threw his weight behind Mills’ campaign.

“We think that Janet Mills is the best candidate to retire Susan Collins. She’s a tested two-term governor and the people of Maine have an enormous amount of affection and respect for her,” he said, adding: “I’ll let the people of Maine decide.”

Other Democrats have come to Platner’s defense. Sen. Martin Heinrich told CNN he is not reconsidering his support.

“Graham has made a lot of mistakes in his life, he’s had a very long journey to the place where he is today, but he has owned those mistakes, owned up to them and he’s evolved,” Heinrich told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “As long as he owns up to his mistakes and says what I did at that time was wrong, then I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt.”

Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona told reporters on Capitol Hill that he hadn’t seen the tattoo, but could understand a youth-driven mistake.

“If you’re a young man or a young woman, and you’ve grown out of it and taken the steps to grow out of it,” Gallego said. “Everyone has the right to grow out of stupidity, essentially…and I think voters should take the opportunity to evaluate that.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify Genevieve McDonald’s comments.