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Welcome to this week’s edition of the Surge, a newsletter that always gets stuck right here (the beginning) and may have to bring on Hunter Biden as an opening joke writer.

A lot happened in politics this week, and we’re not even lying about that like we usually do. After a long and thorough search, Donald Trump finally found someone sleazy and unqualified enough to lead America’s intelligence community. Todd Blanche successfully landed the administration in a big enough scandal to earn himself a promotion. And if your name is Dan Sullivan but you haven’t gotten on the Alaska Senate primary ballot yet, you’re missing a party.

Let’s begin, however, with the man whom you may be so sick of hearing about at this point … that we’re giving him two entries off the top.

Maine Democrats—and with them the national Democratic Party—are in trouble. This year, they have the best opportunity they’ve ever had to oust Maine Sen. Susan Collins, but they may be a few days away from nominating a dud. It’s been an awful week of news for Graham Platner, whose high-risk, high-reward candidacy is looking dangerously imbalanced toward the former.

Since the beginning of the campaign, he’s gotten away with a lot of dug-up, ugly old Reddit posts, as well as an explanation that it took him decades to recognize that the tattoo on his chest was a Nazi symbol. But last weekend, the Wall Street Journal first reported how his wife, in 2025, had discovered “sexually explicit texts” with several women who were not his wife. Then, this week, the New York Times reported on several ex-girlfriends of Platner’s who described his “unsettling,” “volatile,” and, in some cases, “abusive” behavior. (Other ex-girlfriends spoke highly of him.) Platner, in damage-control mode, acknowledged that he was occasionally a lousy boyfriend but denied any sort of physical abuse, swore that he has cleaned up his act, and pledged that no more skeletons will emerge. We have trouble even slightly believing that last part.

2. Graham Platner, Pt. 2

Who’s going to end up running against Susan Collins?

Platner is poised to officially win the Democratic nomination on Tuesday night—even though Gov. Janet Mills is making weird noises about how she’s still in the race—but we don’t think it’s premature to begin thinking about whether he’ll ultimately face Collins on the ballot in November. We see this going one of two ways. Platner may well pull through this in a weakened but still competitive position, while future revelations don’t land with the same punch. Then the race is on as it ever was. This is........

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