Pirate's Cove

Democrats would vote for Hilter, Pol Pot, and Mao if they ran as a Democrat

Platner Has Slight Edge Over Collins in Tight Maine Senate Race, Poll Finds

Senator Susan Collins and Graham Platner are locked in a neck-and-neck Senate contest in Maine, according to (this link will actually work) a New York Times/Portland Press Herald/Siena poll, as voters weigh a desire for Democratic control of the Senate against Ms. Collins’s record and controversy around Mr. Platner’s past conduct.

Mr. Platner leads the race by two percentage points among likely voters, capturing the support of 49 percent, compared to 47 percent for Ms. Collins. It is a slight advantage, but one that is considered too small for polls to measure reliably, and which could easily grow or shrink as campaigning ramps up.

An oysterman who has never held elected office, Mr. Platner, 41, rode a populist message to the Democratic nomination despite reports about offensive online posts, a tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol and his treatment of women. But the poll found that he is failing to attract some voters who otherwise want to see Democrats take power in Washington.

Fifty-four percent of voters said they would like to see Democrats control the Senate next year, a notably higher percentage than the percent of respondents who said they supported Mr. Platner. In fact, Ms. Collins, the Republican, is winning 10 percent of voters who prefer Democratic control.

It’s still early, but, that last paragraph does not bode well for Nazi Platner for when people actually go to the polls, and could reduce the number of Dems going to the polls, as they aren’t enthused over voting for a Nazi.

Mr. Platner has strong backing among Democrats and some of the party’s traditional constituencies, winning notable majorities of young, college-educated and Portland-area voters. A slight majority — 52 percent — of women say they support his bid.

The AWFLs are cool with this guy.

Joan Merriam, 79, a Democrat from Rockland, Maine., described the race as “a moral Catch-22.” Ms. Merriam, a retired teacher, said that she was unsettled by the reports about Mr. Platner’s conduct toward women, but that she also could not imagine voting for Ms. Collins.

“I’m holding my nose and voting for him,” she said of Mr. Platner. “She supports Trump way too much and doesn’t have a backbone.”

See? I mean, she could vote for neither, but, Dems will almost always vote for the Dem, regardless.

47% too extreme, because Democrats do not think he is. Same with character and moral values….Dems think a guy with a Nazi tattoo has good moral values.

65% say no impact (the graphic is kinda laid out weird) for things like having a Nazi tattoo. Here’s where it gets weird

How Our Polling Team Writes Sensitive Questions on Controversies

When preparing for the first New York Times/Siena poll of this year’s U.S. Senate race in Maine, we were faced with a common challenge in survey design: How to ask about sensitive topics without biasing the results of the poll.

Asking voters about controversies is a delicate task. Our goal is to measure the voters’ opinions as they existed before we called them. For that reason, we try to limit the amount of new information we expose voters to during a survey. But it’s equally important that voters understand exactly what they are being asked about. (snip)

In the Maine Senate race, there were a number of sensitive topics that we thought might have the power to affect voters’ decisions. Graham Platner, the Democratic nominee, has been the subject of numerous controversies. Among them are questions about his past treatment of women, a tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol, which he has had covered, and social media posts written years ago that many found offensive.

Choosing the exact language for the Maine race was a balancing act between specificity and the desire not to bias respondents. One option we considered was describing the text messages sent by Mr. Platner as “sexual text messages sent to multiple women while married,” but we worried that could introduce bias to respondents by creating an environment where they felt pressured to respond negatively. Another version described the communications only as “text messages,” but we worried that was too vague and could be interpreted too broadly.

“Balancing”. In other words, they were trying to soften the language and went with ““text messages he exchanged with women while married.”” Sad.