Auchincloss denies backing Collins over Platner in Maine race
rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) pushed back against criticism that his refusal to endorse maine’s senate candidate Graham Platner amounted to support for Republican Sen. Susan Collins. The backlash began after Auchincloss said he found Platner’s controversial nazi-symbology tattoo-covered only after he decided to run-“personally disqualifying,” adn said he would vote for someone else in the Maine Democratic primary if he were in platner’s place.
Auchincloss, speaking to CNN, criticized Platner’s tattoo and accompanying comments, and later reiterated in a statement that he is not backing collins. He condemned the insinuations while emphasizing that Democrats must win the Senate in November, and he cited his record of supporting Democratic efforts to take control of both chambers.
His remarks drew renewed fire from some Democrats and labor advocates, including political strategist rob Flaherty and the UAW’s Helen Brosnan, who argued that Auchincloss was effectively making room for a Republican to win. Auchincloss’s Democratic challenger, Jason Poulos, also attacked him and criticized Majority Democrats PAC as a billionaire-funded group steering the party away from labor and economic-justice priorities.
Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) denied claims he was supporting Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in Maine’s Senate race after backlash to his opposition to Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner’s bid.
Auchincloss, who is Jewish, said Monday during an interview with CNN that he found Platner’s controversial tattoo, which resembled a Nazi symbol before he had it covered, and his commentary about it to be “personally disqualifying.”
Recommended Stories
His comment sparked outcry from some Democrats, who felt his opposition to Platner, the presumed Democratic nominee after Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME) dropped out of the race, meant he was supporting Collins’s reelection bid.
In a Tuesday statement, Auchincloss rejected accusations that he was working against Democratic efforts to retake the Senate in November, and disavowed Collins, whom he called a “rubber stamp for the worst admin in history.”
“Claims that I would endorse her, implicitly or otherwise, ignore my track record supporting Democrats to take back both chambers,” Auchincloss wrote.
However, the Massachusetts Democrat dug his heels in to oppose Planter’s bid, saying if it were him, “I’d vote for someone else in the Maine Democratic primary.”
“As I said months ago, I find Platner’s Nazi tattoo and his commentary about it personally disqualifying,” Auchincloss said. “Regardless of what happens in Maine, Democrats need to take back the Senate and I’ll keep working hard to make it happen.”
“It’s clear that Congressman Auchincloss is getting pummeled by the far-Left for stating the obvious — they shouldn’t support someone who wore a Nazi tattoo for eighteen years and only covered it up when he decided to run for Senate,” a spokesperson for Collins’s campaign said in a statement.
The Washington Examiner has reached out to Graham for comment.
Auchincloss’s Monday statement opposing Platner sparked backlash from some Democrats, with political strategist Rob Flaherty saying a Republican-controlled Senate is “outside the realm of acceptability” for a Democrat to support.
“I’m all for Democratic Heterodoxy™️ but I generally think ‘there should be a republican-controlled senate’ is outside the realm of acceptability,” Flaherty, an alum of both former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaigns, said in a post to X.
In a subsequent post, Flaherty called it “odd” for Auchincloss, the chairman of the Majority Democrats political action committee, to “endorse against both Democrats and a Majority.”
Helen Brosnan, the national political director for the United Auto Workers, similarly rejected Auchincloss’s comments, writing in an X post that the Democrat hated a “pro-labor, anti-establishment candidate so much” that he was rooting “for a Republican to win and ensure we lose the Senate.”
Jason Poulos, who is running to unseat Auchincloss in the Democratic primary on Sept. 1, denounced the incumbent’s opposition to Platner in a statement to the Washington Examiner and referred to the Majority Democrats PAC as a “billionaire-funded group built to steer the party away from talking about taxing the rich, regulating corporations, and worker power.”
GRAHAM PLATNER BLASTS ‘OLIGARCHY’ ON PORTLAND TOUR
“When a Democrat wins by running against the donor class, the chair of Majority Democrats shows up on cable news to declare that Democrat disqualified,” he wrote. “You cannot complain about the influence of money in politics while running a party-within-the-party funded by that donor class, and then tell Democratic primary voters in another state which of their nominees is allowed to win.”
He continued, “The voters of MA-4 deserve a representative focused on building a Democratic majority, not one carrying water for the donors trying to handpick it.”
" Conservative News Daily does not always share or support the views and opinions expressed here; they are just those of the writer."
*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases
