Democrats rally round Platner in Maine while Trump reaffirms grip on GOP after primary elections

Graham Platner and his wife, Amy, wave to supporters as they arrive at a campaign event in Blue Hill, Maine. Photograph: CJ Gunther/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Graham Platner and his wife, Amy, wave to supporters as they arrive at a campaign event in Blue Hill, Maine. Photograph: CJ Gunther/Getty Images Democrats rally round Platner in Maine as Trump reaffirms grip on GOP after primaries Outcome of polls in four states offer mixed signals about direction of two major parties before November’s midterms Progressives rallied round the controversial Graham Platner after his primary victory in Maine on Tuesday , while Donald Trump again exerted his grip on the Republican party, helping to defeat a politician who had pushed for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Primary elections were held in four states – Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina – ahead of November’s midterms to decide control of both houses of Congress. The results offered mixed signals about the direction of the two major parties. The marquee race was a Senate primary election in Maine, where Platner won 72% of the vote , defeating the state governor, Janet Mills, who had suspended her campaign but remained on the ballot, and third placed David Costello, based on early results reported by Reuters. The result sets up a bruising general election battle against the Republican incumbent, Susan Collins. Maine is among a handful of states where Democratic strategists believe a Republican-held seat is genuinely vulnerable. Platner, 41, a Marine veteran and oyster farmer from the small coastal town of Sullivan, had in effect wrapped up the nomination weeks ago when Mills suspended her campaign after concluding there was little prospect of catching him. But Platner was carrying substantial political baggage, including old incendiary Reddit posts, a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol, sexually explicit messages sent to other women early in his marriage and accusations from a former girlfriend that he was physically intimidating. Platner has apologised repeatedly for aspects of his past conduct and has linked some of his struggles to post-traumatic stress disorder and depression after combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Addressing a crowd of cheering supporters at a YMCA gym in Blue Hill, Platner acknowledged the controversies directly, adopting a tone that was part confession, part political appeal. “If you believe, as I do, that we can change our politics and change our country, then you must also believe that people can change,” he told supporters. “I’ve made mistakes in my life, mistakes that I regret, that I live with, that I continue to learn from. I’m still far from perfect, but every day I wake up and I try to be a little bit better and a little bit kinder than I was the day before.” Supporters packed the hall long before Platner appeared. His mother, Leslie Harlow, took the stage before him, describing her son as someone who had spent his life helping other