An oyster farmer running for the U.S. Senate in Maine has opened a nine-point lead over Republican incumbent Susan Collins, even as a fellow Democrat calls his tattoo "personally disqualifying" and urges primary voters to pick someone else.

Graham Platner, the Democratic candidate, pulled 51 percent support among likely voters in the Pine Tree State Poll released Wednesday, compared to 42 percent for Collins. The University of New Hampshire Survey Center conducted the poll of 1,397 Maine residents between May 21 and May 25, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.

The numbers represent a widening gap. A February edition of the same poll had Platner at 49 percent and Collins at 38 percent. His lead grew from roughly eleven points to nine in the head-to-head matchup, but Collins gained only four points while Platner added two, and six percent of likely voters remain undecided, as The Hill reported.

The tattoo that won't go away

Platner's rise has not come without baggage. The candidate faced backlash earlier this year over a tattoo that critics said resembled a Nazi symbol, along with controversial Reddit posts. Platner denied knowing the tattoo bore any resemblance to Nazi imagery and said he had it covered up after the issue was brought to his attention.

Not everyone in his own party has accepted the explanation. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, a Massachusetts Democrat, posted on social media Tuesday:

"As I said months ago, I find Platner's Nazi tattoo and his commentary about it personally disqualifying. If it were me, I'd vote for someone else in the Maine Democratic primary."

Auchincloss's characterization of the tattoo as a "Nazi tattoo" goes further than the available facts warrant. Platner disputes the resemblance, and no independent verification of the tattoo's specific design appears in the polling report or The Hill's coverage. What is clear: the controversy has not dented Platner's numbers so far.

Maine's Democratic primary is scheduled for June 9. Governor Janet Mills, who dropped her own Senate bid, is still expected to appear on the ballot. She drew 10 percent support in the latest survey, votes that could scatter once she is no longer actively campaigning.

What Collins is up against

Collins, first elected in 1996, has survived tough cycles before. But the current landscape is unfriendly to Republican incumbents in New England, and her numbers have barely moved since February despite months of campaigning.

The broader Senate map matters enormously. Republicans hold a narrow majority, and recent votes have shown just how fragile that margin can be. A 50-49 Senate vote to reverse a Biden-era mining ban near Minnesota's Boundary Waters illustrated how little room the GOP has to lose even a single seat.

Maine is not the only place where Republicans face headwinds. A Sanders- and AOC-backed progressive won a New Jersey special election that the GOP had hoped to hold, shrinking the party's cushion further.

And the pattern extends beyond the Senate. In Florida, a Democrat flipped a House seat despite a presidential endorsement for the Republican candidate, a reminder that ballot-box results have not tracked with the national party's confidence.

Democrats' own fractures

If Platner's polling strength looks like good news for Democrats, the intra-party fight over his candidacy complicates the picture. Auchincloss is not some marginal backbencher. He represents a safe blue district and has positioned himself as a voice of the party's center-left mainstream. His public refusal to back the frontrunner in a marquee Senate race is notable.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, has taken the opposite approach, giving Platner strong support. That alignment tells its own story: the candidate leading the charge to unseat Collins is running with the blessing of the party's democratic-socialist wing while its more conventional members keep their distance.

Senate Democrats have had their own unity problems. Even members who break with their party on high-profile votes can reshape the chamber's dynamics, as John Fetterman demonstrated when he provided the deciding vote to preserve presidential authority on Iran policy.

Whether Platner would be a reliable Democratic vote or a wild card is a question Maine voters have not yet had to answer. First, he has to survive June 9.

The numbers beneath the numbers

A few details in the poll deserve closer scrutiny. The survey sampled 1,397 residents, a solid sample for a state poll, but it measured "likely voters," a screen that depends on modeling assumptions the University of New Hampshire does not fully detail in the topline release. The 2.6-point margin of error means the true gap could be as narrow as roughly four points or as wide as fourteen.

Mills's lingering 10 percent is the wild card. If she formally withdraws before the primary, those voters have to go somewhere. Platner is the obvious beneficiary in a Democratic primary, but in a general election, some of those moderate Mills supporters might not be as enthusiastic about a Sanders-backed oyster farmer with a tattoo controversy.

Collins, meanwhile, has not yet faced a serious primary challenge of her own. Her 42 percent floor in the general-election matchup suggests a base that is loyal but not growing. With only six percent undecided, her path to closing a nine-point deficit runs through persuading voters who have already told a pollster they prefer someone else.

Republican Senate leaders cannot afford to write off Maine. The party's thin majority has already been tested by internal fractures on key votes, and losing Collins's seat would make every remaining legislative fight harder.

What we still don't know

Several questions remain unanswered. The specific design of Platner's tattoo, and the content of the Reddit posts that drew criticism, have not been detailed in the available reporting. Platner's campaign has not publicly responded to Auchincloss's latest broadside. And the timeline of when exactly the tattoo was covered up, "earlier this year" is all that has been offered, leaves room for doubt about how seriously the candidate took the issue before it became a political liability.

None of that has mattered to Democratic primary voters so far. Platner's support ticked up two points since February despite weeks of negative coverage. Whether that durability holds through June 9 and into a general election campaign, where Collins and outside groups will have millions to spend, is another matter entirely.

Democrats may end up nominating the one candidate a member of their own caucus has publicly called disqualified. If they do, they'll own whatever comes next, and so will the voters of Maine.