A pair of new polls on embattled Maine Senate Democratic candidate Graham Platner show him losing some of his lead against incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
The two surveys show the race tightening since the University of New Hampshire’s Pine Tree State Poll had Mr. Platner leading Ms. Collins by 9 percentage points last week.
A Public Policy Polling survey has Mr. Platner leading Ms. Collins 49% to 45% among registered voters, which is just outside the 3.8-percentage-point margin of error.
About 6% of registered voters in the survey were undecided. The poll was conducted between Tuesday and Wednesday.
A second poll, released Thursday, was a UMass Lowell/YouGov survey of 650 likely Maine voters that shows Mr. Platner with the support of 48% of respondents, compared to 43% for Ms. Collins, with 6% undecided and 2% supporting another candidate. The poll had a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points.
This survey, however, was conducted from May 13 through May 26, before some of the latest scandals about Mr. Platner had surfaced.
A gender gap in this poll exists among respondents who back each candidate: 54% of women and 42% of men support Mr. Platner, while Ms. Collins receives support from 35% of women and 51% of men.
The ranked-choice Democratic primary election will be held Tuesday; the general election will be held Nov. 3.
The new poll numbers come as news surfaced recently about Mr. Platner creating a sexually suggestive profile of himself on the hookup app KiK — a site known for facilitating teen hookups — when he was in his 30s.
Mr. Platner’s profile on the anonymous messaging app features a photo of himself shirtless with a towel wrapped around his waist.
The account uses the name Graham Platner and the handle associated with his Reddit and Instagram posts, “Phustle,” and “Phustle0331.”
His distinctive tattoos are visible in the photos, including the Chinese character for “love” on his chest.
The profile was created in June 2016, when Mr. Platner was about 31.
The revelation about the KiK account comes after Amy Platner recorded a video defending her husband and expressing anger at media reports that exposed his sexting with several women.
Mrs. Platner alerted her husband’s campaign staffers about the sexually explicit texts in the days before the Democrat announced his Senate bid, when the party was scanning his past for any dirt political opponents might find.
She said she felt betrayed by the campaign staffer who then leaked the texts.
Mr. Platner previously faced backlash for a Nazi-symbol tattoo on his chest, which he covered up after announcing his Senate run. He has also been blasted for several posts on his now-deleted Reddit account that include topics such as sexual assault and military veterans.
In 2013, he posted on Reddit: “How about people just take some responsibility for themselves and not get so f——- up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to?”
He later mocked a Purple Heart recipient, calling the wounded soldier a “dumb motherf——-” who “didn’t deserve to live.”
He also deemed all police officers “bastards,” agreed with posts calling rural White Mainers “racist and stupid,” and asked, “Why don’t Black people tip?”
Mr. Platner has apologized for the remarks, blaming the “stupid joke comments” on mental health struggles after returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
