As I listened to Graham Platner speak on Sunday afternoon in Auburn about the reality that many “regular people like ourselves often feel like we have no power,” I could appreciate both his eloquence and the fire in his gut that has turned the 41-year-old oyster farmer into a national phenom.

“We are told that politics is this theater that you see,” he said. He insisted that ordinary people, if they organize and work, can defeat those with money and influence.

More likely to kill his campaign to unseat Sen. Susan Collins than greedy millionaires, however, are independent and Democratic women who are increasingly fed up with rolling revelations about Platner’s past. On Saturday, it was reported that Platner sent sexually explicit texts to multiple women after getting married in 2023.

Darcy Halvorsen of South Portland is a good example of somebody who has lost the faith.

“For the last couple of months, I have been a Platner fan and defender, to some extent,” she told me Sunday. “Today, I am really disappointed and disgusted by his non-answers on a range of questions, including stories alleging he sent sexually explicit messages to women after his marriage.

“Voters deserve better,” Halvorsen said. “Maine deserves better.”

She’s not alone. Social media is chock full of Maine women who say they’re no longer buying what Platner’s selling.

One of my friends, who doesn’t want her name used because she’s seen the consequences of speaking out, said that while she liked Platner’s commercials and what he had to say, she felt in her gut that “something was not right and I was not comfortable. I think I now know why. I will not be voting for him.”

Platner — who squandered some years after his combat tours in the Marines penning ill-considered tirades on the internet — has said many profane and offensive things about women.

During Collins’ last Senate campaign, for example, he wrote posts online calling her “a piece of shit and a coward.” He dismissed Collins’ Democratic opponent, Sara Gideon, as a “garbage candidate.”

In one of his many disturbing Reddit posts, Platner said sexual assault victims should “just take some responsibility for themselves” to avoid attacks and “act like an adult for f***’s sake.”

Platner’s campaign whines that the press ought to focus on the issues, not the personal failings of the candidate.

Revelations about Platner’s past are relevant, however, because he has no public record. Before he jumped from obscurity into the Senate race last summer, his political experience was nil. His character remains a mystery. His credibility is difficult to measure.

Until voters are satisfied that Platner is fit to hold office, we’re never going to get to housing or healthcare or anything beyond the question of whether he’s for real or not.

The sad reality is that many of us still don’t know the answer.

By now, though, many others do. That’s why I suspect Gov. Janet Mills, who suspended her Senate campaign, is going to get a lot of votes in next week’s primary.

“People have the impression that I ‘withdrew’ or ‘dropped out,'” Mills told me in a chat Sunday, “but I simply suspended active campaigning. I am still on the ballot.”