Yes, it's true he won 72% of the vote on June 9, but we have to look at that number with a heavy dose of reality. That primary happened after Governor Janet Mills suspended her campaign. Platner was running effectively uncontested.
The vast majority of Maine Democrats (and crucially, the independent swing voters needed to flip this seat) simply stayed home. Staying home during an uncontested primary is a sign of an unenthusiastic electorate, not an endorsement of his laundry list of red flags.
Consider the actual math:
--- Primary turnout is a tiny fraction of the electorate. Winning 72% of an uncontested primary means Platner was only backed by roughly 10% to 15% of the total voters needed to win in November.
--- Because of Maine's Ranked-Choice Voting law, a candidate cannot win with a simple plurality. They must cross a strict 50% threshold to win.
--- If we argue that voters staying home equals "approval" of a candidate, then it would also be "logical" to conclude that most of Maine vastly approves of Susan Collins based on her past victories. Well, we know that isn’t true.
All I'm trying to say is that defending his past bad behavior by pointing to a skewed primary metric ignores the cold, hard math required to win.
A primary base can nominate a candidate, but it takes a true majority of the
entire state's general electorate to win the seat. To beat Collins, our replacement nominee must capture a broad coalition of moderate Democrats and independents who are highly sensitive to these red flags.
When a replacement is nominated, we need to make sure the candidate is properly vetted, and the process needs to do more than cater to a motivated 15% slice of the base.
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