But if I lived in Maine, I’d vote for him in November. I’d do it without any joy and without any hesitation, because he’s a Democrat running against a Republican and I haven’t been kidding around when I’ve said that President Trump has no respect for democracy, no regard for the truth, no patience for Americans who don’t bow to him and no limits to his desire to exploit the presidency for his and his minions’ glorification and enrichment. I can’t recognize the profound moral offense and extreme danger of Trump and then sit out the election or cast a vote that potentially helps his party, which has abetted or ignored his authoritarian designs, win either chamber of Congress. That would be irresponsible, nonsensical and perilous.

But do other voters think the same way? Is their frequently articulated disdain for Trump just a bunch of colorful and cathartic words or a genuine cause for action, for uncomfortable choices, for not letting the perfect be the enemy of the Platner? That question hovers over the coming midterms even more boldly and consequentially than it did over the presidential elections of 2016, 2020 and 2024, because since January 2025, Trump has revealed himself and his agenda as never before. He has also given Americans every reason to expect even worse from the remainder of his current term — if there are no Democratic roadblocks and he rages without restraint.

Will they vote accordingly? Will Democrats? Around the country, in key Senate and House races, they’ll be presented with some Democratic nominees who are more progressive or moderate than they are and who have discrete positions that unsettle them, individual warts that offend them, biographies that aren’t to their liking. It is ever thus, and Platner’s emergence last week as the presumptive Democratic Senate nominee in Maine is a reminder of that.

But this time around, the risks of being turned off and turning away are much greater than usual. There’s a kind of reckoning at hand. Either Trump is the threat that his impassioned detractors have made him out to be and they’ll cast ballots that reflect that or they won’t, because the specter of an unimpeded, full-throttle Trump actually pales next to their quarrels with and pique at Democratic candidates they dislike. He’s not all that terrifying to them after all.

In my newsletter a week ago, I pushed back at any Democratic overconfidence about the midterms, noting all the wild cards in play over the next six months. I mentioned ongoing gerrymandering, and on Wednesday, the Supreme Court further gutted the Voting Rights Act, a decision that could clear the way for new, more Republican-friendly congressional maps in several states, including Louisiana and Tennessee. Around the same time as that ruling, Florida finalized plans for an aggressive new gerrymander.

But I also warned about tensions within the Democratic Party and whether the outcomes of primaries in crucial states could have a negative impact on party enthusiasm and turnout. Take Michigan, a swing state that Democrats must win to wrest control of the Senate. The Democratic primary there, to be held in August, is a competitive three-way race between Haley Stevens, Mallory McMorrow and Abdul El-Sayed. El-Sayed, who seems to have gained momentum, is farther to the left than many Michigan Democrats and has infuriated many Jewish voters by campaigning with the left-wing influencer Hasan Piker, who once said that Hamas was “a thousand times better” than Israel. El-Sayed generates reactions strong enough that I could easily see some Michigan Democrats and independents refusing to vote for him if he’s the party’s Senate nominee. I could also see some refusing to vote for another candidate if he’s not. Would the members of either group be OK with how that benefits Trump?

Democratic leaders have identified Texas as a plausible opportunity to flip a Senate seat from red to blue; a recent poll by Texas Public Opinion Research bolstered that thinking by showing the Democratic nominee, James Talarico, with a slight lead over either of his possible Republican opponents, who are headed to a runoff on May 26. But Talarico’s victory in the Democratic primary in early March came after a nasty battle with his rival, Jasmine Crockett, some of whose supporters accused Talarico of racially bigoted comments. Will they nonetheless turn out for him in November? They should if they see Trump as the greater evil. What they wind up doing hinges partly on the strength of that conviction.

If I had my way, I’d elevate moderate Democrats in every state and district that’s not firmly in the red or blue column and that’s genuinely up for grabs. I concur with an important essay by the editorial board of The Times in October that laid out the wisdom of that approach: “Candidates closer to the political center, from both parties, continue to fare better in most elections than those farther to the right or left. This pattern may be the strongest one in electoral politics today.” For that reason among others, El-Sayed wouldn’t be my pick to face off against the Republican nominee in Michigan. Still, I’d vote for him — with a heavy heart — if I lived in Michigan and he made it to the general election.

And I worry that Platner is a bigger gamble than Janet Mills, the Maine governor, who essentially ceded the Democratic nomination to him last week, would have been. That’s largely because he has never held elected office and the skeletons tumbling out of his closet make him vulnerable. But it’s also because he campaigned more or less to Mills’s left.

I have separate misgivings about Platner’s character and about his ability to deliver for the economically anxious Americans whom he vigorously and rightly champions. But now that he’s the presumptive Democratic nominee, I’m behind him, for one reason that overrides many reservations: He’s not Senator Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who is running for a sixth term and who, despite her reputation for moderation, has shown herself to be an undependable check on Trump. The contest — about the balance of power in Congress — pits someone who has never coddled our dangerous president against a coward. And the costs of such cowardice have risen much too high.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5863678&forum_id=2E#49865511)