Last fall, Graham Platner — an oysterman running for the Democratic nomination for US Senate in Maine — landed in hot water, when some of his old Reddit posts, showing him blaming victims of sexual assault and calling himself a communist, surfaced. Then, there was a story about the Nazi imagery tattooed on his chest. He had the tattoo covered up. Platner emerged from those scandals relatively unscathed by admitting to his checkered past and saying that he had changed.
Maine
Trump stopped federal funding to Maine over transgender athletes. Could California follow?
President Trump was welcoming governors to the White House in February when he sought out Maine Gov. Janet Mills, demanding to know whether she would comply with his ban on transgender athletes in women’s sports.
“I’m complying with state and federal laws,” Mills replied.
Trump responded, “We are the federal law” He added: “You’d better comply. … Otherwise, you’re not getting any federal funding.”
Mills’ parting shot to Trump: “We’ll see you in court.”
Trump made good on his threat and began the process this month to strip Maine of federal education dollars because that state allows transgender students to compete on women’s teams. The dispute immediately landed in court — a fight that represents a high-stakes case study for California, which also has statutes permitting transgender athletes in women’s sports.
California education code “ensures equal rights and opportunities for every student” and “prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation.“
Maine is defending the primacy of local control as well as its state law — which is grounded in pro-LGBTQ+ policy. Trump, meanwhile, is opposing Maine on conservative ideological grounds using federal funding as the cudgel to prevail. Some see Maine as a precursor to what California can expect: a Trump administration attempt to halt federal education funding.
“It seems likely that the Trump administration will proceed with lawsuits against California and other states that have policies similar to those that the administration is challenging in Maine,” said Jacob Huebert, president of Liberty Justice Center, a law firm that broadly supports Trump’s agenda. “The administration’s demands are appropriate, so California should comply with them.”
Unlike the governor of Maine, California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently said it was “deeply unfair” for trans students to compete in women’s sports, but he has not acted to change California law, which he previously has supported.
Read more: Newsom says sharing his beliefs on trans athletes wasn’t ‘some grand design’
Trump’s U.S. Department of Education has opened an investigation into the California Interscholastic Federation, which oversees sports at more than 1,500 high schools, explicitly threatening California funding, but has not yet moved to cut off those dollars.
California officials declined to comment about the ongoing investigation.
Although federal funding for California education is challenging to calculate and arrives through multiple channels, some tallies put the figure at $16.3 billion per year — including money for school meals, students with disabilities and early education Head Start programs. The Los Angeles Unified School District has estimated that it receives about $1.26 billion a year.
And, in the current moment, there are myriad ways for California to lose these dollars, based on Trump administration directives.
One example is the California law that prohibits schools from automatically notifying families about student gender-identity issues and shields teachers from retaliation for supporting transgender student rights.
Federal officials contend the California law illegally violates the right of parents to receive school records related to their children and have launched an investigation into the California Department of Education for enforcing it. Trump favors requiring schools to notify parents about any matters involving gender identity and their child. The California law must be nullified, the administration says.
Read more: Trump targets California ban on ‘forced outing’ of students’ gender identity to parents
Then there is the Trump ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Every state and U.S. territory is supposed to certify the elimination of DEI by Thursday — or risk losing federal funds and being assessed financial penalties. California is among 16 states refusing to do so.
Meanwhile, California colleges and universities also face the loss of billions in grant funding over DEI penalties and over whether the Trump administration concludes that enough has been done to combat alleged campus antisemitism.
Maine is the first state to face full throttling of its the K-12 funds from the Trump administration.
This month, the U.S. Department of Education began an “administrative process” to cancel all education funding for Maine. The state’s K-12 schools have received about $358.4 million, or $2,062 per pupil annually, from the federal government, according to research from Education Data Initiative. The department also referred the Maine Department of Education to the U.S. Department of Justice for “further enforcement action.”
In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees school food programs, immediately suspended a portion of its funding to the state. The withheld dollars, according to Maine, resulted in cutting off meals for young children who attend day-care programs, at-risk school-age children outside school hours and people in adult day-care programs, according to court documents. There has not yet been a cutoff of all school food aid, but Trump has said multiple times that he’s going to take back every federal dollar from the state.
Maine sued for relief based on the first wave of cuts, and a U.S. district judge granted a temporary restraining order, meaning that the funding is supposed to be restored until courts decide the case on its merits.
Read more: California defies Trump order to certify that all school districts have eliminated DEI
The Trump administration recognizes only male and female in terms of who is entitled to join a sports team, in particular a women’s team. According to court filings, a qualified participant on a women’s team is defined as “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.” Males, by comparison, are the ones with the “small reproductive cell.”
Under the Trump administration, there is no discrimination protection based on gender identity and therefore transgender students have no right to be in sports or locker rooms provided for women. To allow transgender students in these spaces amounts to illegal sexual discrimination against women, according to the Trump administration.
The Trump administration contends Maine is violating federal antidiscrimination laws as well as protections implied by the U.S. Constitution.
Nationwide, more than half of states already had a ban on sports participation by transgender youths. However, the majority of transgender students live in states without such a ban, according to UCLA’s Williams Institute, a think tank that conducts research on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy.
Many jurisdictions without bans specifically permit students to participate in sports consistent with their gender identity, including California. New York State recently enacted a constitutional amendment prohibiting gender identity discrimination, which some have argued will protect transgender athletes from exclusion from women’s sports.
Is Maine an easier target?
Some critics speculate that targeting Maine first on the issue is a better strategy.
“California is a much bigger state, and that makes a difference,” said Jesse Rothstein, professor of public policy and economics at UC Berkeley. “The administration is hoping that states like Maine will buckle, that they won’t be able to afford to go without the money for the duration of a lawsuit. Picking a fight with the state of California would be a big deal.”
And from a political standpoint, he added, California has congressional districts — represented by Republicans — that rely on federal funding.
“I think that that would create political problems for the administration that they don’t face in Maine,” Rothstein said.
Nonetheless, under current court interpretation of federal law, Maine should prevail if the state can stick it out, said Rothstein and several other critics of the Trump administration.
“There’s no legal basis for withdrawing food-aid funds because you don’t like the policy around transgender students in sports,” Rothstein said.
Supporters of the Trump’s action assert his policy will win in court. They say it has been long established that states can lose federal funding if they violate a federal body of law called Title IX, which governs areas such as sexual discrimination, sexual harassment and sexual assault. Title IX protections apply to schools that receive federal funds, including athletic programs.
Using the leverage of funding to enforce antidiscrimination law “is the way Title IX works,” said Huebert, of Liberty Justice Center.
A state doesn’t have to accept federal funding, but if it does, federal rules must be followed, said Sarah Parshall Perry, vice president and legal fellow at Defending Education, which describes itself as committed to eliminating political ideologies in public education and which is broadly supportive of Trump’s education policy.
“As a matter of regulatory, statutory and constitutional law, they’re on very solid footing,” Parshall Perry said. And politically, “it polls very, very well for Republicans.”
There is, however, disagreement among conservatives about whether Trump is overreaching — intruding into a matter that should be left to more local authority.
“First and foremost, the federal government should not be in the business of funding education, free meals, etc.,” said Neil McCluskey, director of Center for Educational Freedom at Cato Institute, a libertarian thinktank. However, “if the federal government is going to fund things like education and nutrition, it is better that that funding come with few strings attached, especially when it comes to clashes of values.”
For Maine — and perhaps for California — the legal counterattack will argue that the Trump administration is overreaching in two ways: asserting authority outside its jurisdiction and violating laws that govern the process for withdrawing funding.
These two defenses have come up repeatedly in a multitude of legal actions to date against the Trump administration. California has at least a dozen lawsuits in progress to block various Trump actions.
Read more: California, other states sue Trump administration over clawback of COVID school funds
California can base some hope on a legal parallel that dates to Trump’s first term, when he went after federal funding for so-called sanctuary cities — which opposed Trump’s immigration policies. At that time, Trump’s effort failed in the courts, noted Graeme Boushey, director of Center for the Study of Democracy at UC Irvine.
In the current situation, “the legal argument for broadly coercing a state into doing what you want isn’t really different,” Boushey said. “What concerns some observers is that the thing that’s changed is the composition of the U.S. Supreme Court, tilting more in favor of the Trump administration.”
If the Trump administration does prevail in court against Maine, “they will almost certainly pursue California, moving forward,” Boushey said. “And then there’s going to be nothing to stop them from rinse, wash, repeat this again for immigration policy, environmental deregulation — you name it.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Politics
Our political journalists are based in the Maine State House and have deep source networks across the partisan spectrum in communities all over the state. Their coverage aims to cut through major debates and probe how officials make decisions. Read more Politics coverage here.
Sitting in third place in the tight Democratic gubernatorial primary, former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson has gone off the grid, fishing and spending time with family in Aroostook County for a long weekend with little to no phone service.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, currently fourth but still with a shot to become the Democratic nominee, posted a Wednesday photo with her husband at an Augusta brewery. Former Maine House Speaker Hannah Pingree headed home with family in North Haven Wednesday after her primary party in Portland the night before.
“Now it’s just a matter of patience,” Pingree spokesperson Mary-Erin Casale said.
After a primary night without closure, several candidates aiming to replace Gov. Janet Mills are playing the waiting game, spinning the results and trying to relax at home with families after barnstorming the state for months, watching late results trickle in or readying to keep close watch of Augusta’s ranked-choice counting starting Friday.
The next phase of the primary marks a lull that could take about a week following an increasingly bitter season on both sides of the aisle. Law enforcement officers are delivering results from towns across Maine to Augusta, where election officials on Friday will begin tabulating both parties’ gubernatorial primaries and the tight Democratic battle for the 2nd Congressional District. The state hopes to wrap up before next Friday.
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The wait has given way to calls for party unity by the Republican and Democratic frontrunners, lawyer Bobby Charles and former Maine public health chief Nirav Shah, respectively. It also opened a door for the only independent on the ballot in November, state Sen. Rick Bennett of Oxford. With stops in Waterville and Bangor, the former Republican launched a statewide tour Thursday focused on affordability, Maine’s economy and restoring trust in government.
Keeping in style with his aggressive year-long campaign, Charles has been active on social media since racking up just over 37% of first-round votes on Tuesday. But he said he wanted to “take an unusual moment” to thank his supporters and those who voted for his opponents in a Facebook video Thursday morning. He also said he’d reach out to every candidate, several of whom traded blows with him over policy and tactics for months.
“At the end of the day, we hang together or we hang separately,” Charles, who attended a Thursday fundraiser for state Rep. Ken Fredette’s political committee in Newport, said. “This is one team, one fight to save Maine.”
Shah on Wednesday afternoon thanked his opponents, including former energy executive Angus King III, saying “our party is stronger” because of the group’s dedication to Maine.
Bellows, Jackson and Pingree formed a ranked-choice alliance backed by U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner. All expressed confidence about their individual performance. It remains to be seen who picks up most of King’s lower-ranked votes. The son of independent U.S. Sen. Angus King got just over 8% of votes.
Christine Kirby, Jackson’s spokesperson, noted the Allagash logger won both Portland and Bangor on Tuesday, a strong performance in a race “largely overshadowed by the U.S. Senate race and dominated by legacy names and high profile figures.”
Casale said at first glance it’s odd to be excited about second place. But given the dynamics of ranked-choice voting and recent polling showing Pingree rising “at a critical time in the race,” it means “we are in a good position,” she said. Bellows’ team highlighted a Bangor Daily News simulation showing her as a narrow favorite due to strong second-choice support.
On the Republican side, fitness executive Ben Midgley and entrepreneur Jonathan Bush trail Charles after picking up 20.2% and 20% support, respectively. Bush had recently polled in second place, while Midgley has been anywhere from 2% to 10% in recent surveys.
“No campaign outperformed the polls the way Ben Midgley did,” Brent Littlefield, his strategist, said.
Bush and former Maine Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason and their allies spent almost $8.5 million combined in ads. Midgley’s team booked only about $264,000 according to AdImpact, and he loaned his campaign $750,000. Charles spent less than all of them at just over $240,000 on advertising.
Mason, who received about 11% of the vote, said the results marked “the end of my final statewide campaign” in a Thursday post on X thanking supporters, family and staff. He encouraged voters to back U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and Republicans in the Legislature but did not mention his rivals.
Charles noted on social media that his campaign has “witnesses, lawyers and tough voter integrity experts working with us” during the ranked-choice count. One of his posts Thursday included images of Shah and Jackson alongside Mills, claiming they amounted to “more of the same.” Bennett’s face was lumped in with the Democrats.
“I’m sure I’m in his [and Democrats’] minds,” Bennett said in an interview between conversations with voters and volunteers at Geaghan’s Pub in Bangor on Thursday. “I’m sure they have numbers that show there’s a good chance I will be Maine’s next governor … because what they’re serving up is just more finger-pointing, no problem solving.”
Maine residents are seeing a lot of ticks right now – in their backyards, on hikes, but also even in unusual places like crawling on porches or playground equipment.
The reason: The two most predominant ticks in Maine, the deer tick and dog tick, are both in the adult stage of their life cycle.
“We have multiple species all active right now,” said Griffin Dill, manager of the Tick Lab at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. “It gives the impression that we are inundated with ticks.”
Dog ticks have a broader habitat range than deer ticks, and are more noticeable to humans, Dill said. Deer ticks are a public health hazard, transmitting Lyme and other tick-borne diseases to humans. Dog ticks are considered more of a nuisance than a health threat. While it’s possible for a dog tick to transmit Rocky Mountain spotted fever, there have not been any confirmed cases in Maine.
Maine reported a record 4,257 cases of Lyme disease in 2025, and 946 cases through June 9, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Deer ticks dry out more easily, so if they are exposed to sunlight and wind, they can’t maintain moisture, which is why they will more likely be under leaves or in the woods,” Dill said. “The dog tick is much hardier, and you’ll see them crawling in open fields and lawns. You could even see one when walking down your gravel driveway to pick up the mail.”
Dill said adult dog ticks will be prevalent through early August, when they will start to die off. Adult deer ticks will still be present for the next few weeks before dying off, but deer ticks in the nymphal stage, which are difficult to see but can still attach to hosts, will be abundant in July, he said.
Dill said Maine gets a short reprieve from ticks in August, especially if it’s dry, but the adult deer ticks will be prevalent again in the fall.
How can you tell if it’s a dog tick or a deer tick?
Deer ticks have a red-orange body, with a large black area near the head, and black legs. Dog ticks have a reddish-brown body and legs, with grayish-white marks on their back.
How do I submit a tick for identification?
To submit a tick to the University of Maine Cooperative Extension’s Tick Lab, fill out a tick submission form on the website, put the tick into a bag that can be closed or other sealed container. Ship the sample to the UMaine Extension Diagnostic & Research Lab, Attn: Tick Lab, 17 Godfrey Drive, Orono, ME, 04473-3692.
How do I avoid ticks?
Before going outdoors, apply tick repellant, wear long-sleeved clothing when hiking, and tuck pants into socks, according to the Maine CDC. Once inside, check clothing for ticks and put clothes immediately into the dryer on high heat when returning. Experts also recommend watching for ticks when moving firewood or raking leaves, and doing tick checks, including on pets.
If a tick is attached to me, what do I do?
Remove the tick with tweezers by pulling slowly in an upward direction. The deer tick needs to be attached for at least 24 hours before transmitting tick-borne diseases, but not everyone gets the bullseye rash that is common after a bite, so go to your primary care provider for treatment. If caught early, Lyme and other tick-borne diseases can be treated with antibiotics.
Common symptoms of Lyme disease are fatigue, joint pain, headaches and fever.
Are deer ticks everywhere in Maine?
With climate change, the deer tick has expanded its range, and Lyme disease cases are now being reported in all 16 counties. However, deer ticks are more prevalent along the coast, especially Midcoast Maine.
In late May, however, the Wall Street Journal reported that Platner’s wife informed his campaign that he had sexted women outside of their marriage on an app called Kik. And last week, the New York Times published reports of “unsettling” behavior by Platner from former girlfriends.
Nonetheless, on Tuesday, Platner won the Democratic Senate primary to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins in the November general election. (By Tuesday, Platner was running largely unopposed; his only serious opponent, Maine Gov. Janet Mills, suspended her campaign in late April.)
As deputy editor of the Midcoast Villager, a local newspaper based in Camden, Maine, Alex Seitz-Wald has been tracking Platner’s rapid political ascent — and how Mainers of all stripes, the people Platner will have to win over to defeat Collins, feel about him. Seitz-Wald told Today, Explained co-host Noel King that many people are torn over the scandal, but not so torn that they’re not still voting for Platner. He breaks down the results of the primary, Platner’s chances this fall, and more.
Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
What do Maine voters think about Graham Platner? You live there; you talk to people. What’s the read?
I’ve been talking to Platner voters since he jumped in as this totally unknown oyster farmer in August, who no one had heard of, running against a two-term sitting governor. And he instantly connected with people and developed this strong bond; people really related to him.
I think that helped him survive that first round of scandals in the fall with his tattoo and the Reddit controversies. Then, with this latest round, these later ones definitely hit differently. They didn’t roll off his back the way the earlier ones did. There was a lot of concern; there was a lot of disappointment. But ultimately, Maine Democrats have been trying to get rid of Susan Collins and failing for so long, and they have tried running more traditional candidates and lost. And so, I think they are willing to take a chance on him.
It seems like a very pragmatic calculation that a lot of Maine Democrats are making right now, which is, “We need to beat Susan Collins. The stakes are too high. Supreme Court, control of the Senate, everything else, and we’ll put aside any concerns we have with his personal life if he’s our only chance to beat Collins.”
You will know that outside of Maine, there is so much speculation about who Graham Platner really is. Are people in Maine speculating about who Graham Platner really is?
Yes, and no. I think there’s been a major disconnect between what I’ve seen and heard on the ground — when I drive my daughter to school every day, I pass dozens of Platner yard signs that have been out every day for months — and between what the national narrative is, which is typically much more negative.
I think there are very legitimate questions about his past that a lot of Maine Democrats have been asking. But he is also just a type of guy that is very familiar in Maine, and I think a lot of people felt like they could connect with him, could relate with him, even if they didn’t know exactly who he is. I think he also did a really effective job of weaponizing this chip on its shoulder that Maine has about how it’s viewed by the rest of the world.
There’s this concept of: You’re either a Mainer, or you’re from away, and he is coded as extremely Maine. He was able to use that to say all these attacks from the New York Times or whatever, outside world, don’t listen to them. That’s people from away trying to tell us in Maine what to do. And that’s hitting deep in the core of the Maine psyche.
It is notable that Platner’s scandals have unfolded over a long period of time. The allegations in late May — again, I’m in DC, not in Maine, and that felt huge to me. Are you seeing any shakiness after the most recent round?
There’s definitely a lot of shakiness and a lot of concern, a lot of disappointment.
One voter told me they were heartbroken about it, because they really thought that he was different, that he was not a typical politician and especially the way he responded to that first round of scandals with the Reddit post and the tattoo. He really took ownership. And it was part of this whole redemption arc that he had built about how he was a combat veteran with PTSD and in a really dark place. And then, he came home to Maine, got involved with his community and his business, met his now-wife, and was a different man. But the latest round of scandals kind of punctured that narrative, because he only got married in 2023, and those [sexts] were from just a couple of years ago. He wasn’t a young man in his early 20s. And so, I did hear a lot of disappointment about that and also a lot of cynicism from people who thought he was different relegating him back to, “Oh, he’s just a politician like the rest of them.”
But ultimately, partisanship is a very powerful force, and the stakes being what they are in a race that could tip control of the Senate, most Democrats are going to put aside their concerns. But — and this is a big “but” — the thing to watch, I think, heading into November, Susan Collins has a proven, almost unique ability in this day and age, to win split-ticket voters, to get people to vote for Joe Biden at the top of the ticket and, then, vote for her. So it would only take a relatively small number of defections to potentially tip things back into Collins’ column, especially if there are more revelations yet to come.
Do you think he can win against Collins?
I do think he can win against Susan Collins.
Just to level set for a second, I think any Democrat would have a tough time beating Susan Collins. A lot of people look at Maine — it’s New England, it’s a blue state. We haven’t voted for a Republican president since 1988, so they assume this is low-hanging fruit. It’s really not. Susan Collins is a very effective politician. So I think this race, no matter who the Democrat was, was always going to be a tight, within the margin of error race.
That said, Platner has been able to raise the money. He’s been able to hold the coalition together. So far, despite all these scandals, he hasn’t really had any defections from elected officials. He’s done this enormous number of town halls. This is a small state where retail politics goes a long way and connecting with voters face-to-face can really make a difference. And that’s not something that Susan Collins does.
In 2020, Democrats ran a squeaky-clean, well-qualified candidate who raised twice as much money as Susan Collins and still lost by nine percentage points. So I think there’s a willingness — almost a sense of necessity — among some Maine Democrats that we have to try something different, and there’s a good chance we’re going to lose anyway, so let’s take a flyer on this guy and maybe he can do it.
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