Scandal-ridden Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner of Maine announced the termination of his campaign on Wednesday, 8 July. His decision comes in the wake of accusations of sexual assault by his ex-partner, originally published by POLITICO two days earlier.
Platner, one of the up-and-coming progressive socialist figures of today’s Democratic Party, defeated incumbent Governor Janet Mills in the primary in June. Millis had already withdrawn from the race by the time the voting took place, so Platner cleared the field by getting an impressive 72 per cent of the vote.
However, his campaign did not have such smooth sailing after that, to say the least.
Platner had already come under fire for having a tattoo of the Nazi symbol Totenkopf on his chest even before securing the nomination. Also before the primary, a slew of embarrassing and outrageous posts Platner had made on the social media platform Reddit were made public and circulated in the media.
In these posts, the Democratic politician claimed he ‘became a communist,’ called rural Americans stupid, and claimed that he has a habit of masturbating in port-a-potties, among other inflammatory things. He had deleted the comment history and his entire Reddit account before entering the Senate race. However, media outlets such as The Maine Monitor were able to access his post history through third-party archive services.
In June, allegations of infidelity to his wife and sexting with female members of his staff surfaced.
Amidst his mounting scandals, many high-profile Democratic figures still stood by Platner, who was coming up against long-time Republican incumbent Susan Collins. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego, and best-selling author and Maine native Stephen King voiced their support for the embattled candidate.
That is until the recent POLITICO exposé about Platner’s alleged sexual assault.
Platner has lost most of his high-profile endorsements from the Democratic politicians, including those of the aforementioned Senator Warren (who ironically had called him ‘my kind of man’ at one of his rallies and Senator Gallego. King, however, still did not rescind his endorsement.
Jenny Racicot Accuses Graham Platner of Sexual Assault
41-year-old Maine resident Jenny Racicot told POLITICO that she had been in an ‘on-and-off relationship’ with Platner for two years until 2021. One night in 2021, the alleged victim claims Platner entered her home uninvited and highly intoxicated, then forced himself on her despite her repeatedly telling him to stop.
Controversially, Racicot did not make a police report about the alleged attack. However, POLITICO reviewed emails between her and her therapist talking about the incident; and talked to her acquaintances as well with whom she shared her allegations at the time. This was the first time she made these allegations public, after Platner had received his Senate nomination.
Platner insists that the claims agiainst him are false.
In his video message announcing the end of his campaign, he stated that he believes the political class and media establishment acted as ‘judge, jury, and executioner’ in his case; and he did not have enough time to respond before the Democratic Party decided to completely cut him out of funding and the shared party operational infrastructure.
‘We live in a political system that is not built for norlam people. It is a system that is built structurally to make sure that movements like ours cannot flourish,’ Platner told his followers.
How Graham Platner Dropping Out Affects the Senate Race in Maine
The Democratic Party is now in a difficult position to find a new candidate. The deadline to get a new candidate’s name on the ballot is 27 July. The party is very conscious about trying to avoid ‘installing’ a new candidate, the way delegates chose Kamala Harris at the 2024 Democratic National Convention as the nominee for President. Harris took the place of the incumbent President Joe Biden, who had actually won the primary election.
Platner himself stressed in his video message that it is the people who should choose his replacement. However, the way the party will go about picking the new person is unclear.
Despite the major scandal, the Democratic Party’s chances of winning the Senate seat in Maine have shot up since the announcement of Platner dropping out on prediction platforms.
The Republican incumbent Collins, waiting for a Democratic challenger, has been a local powerhouse in Maine. She has won re-election four times since first elected to the US Senate from the state in 1996. In her last re-election bid, she vastly outperformed the polls that put her substantially behind her Democrat Sara Gideon, yet she still won the race by 8.6 points.
She also vastly outperformed President Donald Trump on the top of the Republican ticket, who lost the state by 8.9 points.
Senator Collins was one of the seven Republican Senators to vote for the conviction of President Trump in his second impeachment trial for his involvement in the 6 January Capitol riots. She and Lisa Murkowski are the only two of the seven who remain in Congress and have not been voted out in a Republican primary already.
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