By Seth McLaughlin (The Washington Times)
Graham Platner is running out of friends.
The same left‑wing coalition that helped turn him into a rock star in Maine’s U.S. Senate race abandoned him Tuesday in the wake of a rape allegation that has thrown into turmoil the Democratic Party’s plan to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
The pressure on Mr. Platner to quit spiked Tuesday afternoon when far-left icon Sen. Bernard Sanders — the democratic socialist from Vermont who helped legitimize Mr. Platner’s “working‑class” insurgent bid — broke his silence and urged him to step aside so Maine Democrats could put a new candidate on the ballot.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the poster boy of the party’s socialist wing, also said it was time for Mr. Platner to withdraw from the race.
The far-left group Our Revolution went a step further, calling for former state Senate President Troy Jackson — a fifth‑generation logger and popular liberal activist who lost the recent Maine gubernatorial primary — to replace Mr. Platner on the ticket.
Mr. Jackson also took steps of his own by filing paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to form an exploratory Senate committee, as the jockeying among other possible Platner substitutes intensified.
On Tuesday night, Maine Democrats were running out of patience with Mr. Platner’s foot-dragging.
Devon Murphy-Anderson, the Maine Democratic Party’s executive director, said the party is working to set up an open and fair process, but she accused Mr. Platner of trying to influence that process.
“Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like,” Ms. Murphy-Anderson said in a video post on social media. “We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate — nor in determining what this process looks like.”
She said the party has also reiterated that Mr. Platner must formally withdraw before Democrats can move ahead with choosing a new nominee and refocus on defeating Ms. Collins.
Nirav Shah, who also fell short in the gubernatorial primary, and Jordan Wood, who failed to win the 2nd Congressional District primary, signaled interest. Other names circulating include Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, the fourth‑place finisher in the gubernatorial primary, and Dan Kleban, co-founder of the Maine Beer Co. Some Democrats were still holding out hope that Rep. Jared Golden, who is not seeking reelection, would consider the slot.
Mr. Platner stayed mum about his plans, even as reports indicated that he wanted a say in who would replace him.
His campaign went into crisis mode Monday after Jenny Racicot, a 41‑year‑old Maine resident, said Mr. Platner raped her in 2021. She told Politico she dated Mr. Platner off and on for years and that he showed up drunk at her home uninvited late one night and forced her to have sex with him despite her repeated objections.
Mr. Platner said the allegations were false. He also said he was mulling the “best path forward,” signaling for the first time that he was considering withdrawing from the race.
It did not take long for some of Mr. Platner’s most high‑profile supporters — including Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona — to withdraw their support. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts also withdrew her support.
Mr. Sanders took more time. He surveyed the political mess for nearly a day before putting one of the likely final nails in Mr. Platner’s political coffin.
“I have spoken with Graham Platner about the best path forward for Maine,” Mr. Sanders said on social media. “In the light of these very serious allegations, I have recommended that he step aside.”
Under Maine law, Democrats need Mr. Platner to withdraw from the race by Monday to set the stage for them to replace him on the ballot. If he withdraws by Monday, the Maine Democratic Party has until July 27 to name a replacement candidate.
Republicans said Mr. Platner’s shadow will continue to hang over the race no matter what happens next.
“The Democrat candidate in Maine will either be an alleged rapist with a Nazi tattoo, or someone he selects with the same ’values and vision,’” said Sen. Tim Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm.
The Washington Post, meanwhile, reported Tuesday that one of Mr. Platner’s former girlfriends said he used to remove condoms without her knowing during sex. The Platner campaign denied that allegation.
The erosion of Mr. Platner’s left‑wing support is the latest chapter in what has been a wild ride for the first‑time candidate.
A former Marine and oyster farmer, he electrified the party’s base and steamrolled Gov. Janet Mills in the June primary. He achieved victory after weathering early concerns about his past, including inflammatory social media rants about women drinking too much at bars, a Nazi symbol tattoo he later covered up and sexually explicit texts he sent to women after getting married.
Then came a New York Times report in early June in which three women who had been romantically involved with Mr. Platner described his behavior as unsettling and volatile, saying he drank heavily and was unfaithful.
He apologized for some of those episodes, and the strong support from Mr. Sanders and liberal activists helped insulate him from the political fallout. He folded the controversies into a broader message that if voters believed in transformative politics, they had to believe in the power of the people to change.
He went on to win 72% of the Democratic primary vote — a race that effectively ended in late April when Ms. Mills, a beloved Democrat and staple of Maine politics who was backed by Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, suspended her campaign in deference to Mr. Platner’s momentum.
All that is unraveling since the rape allegation, with Mr. Schumer among the first prominent Democrats to call on Mr. Platner to leave the race.
This article was made available to WMAL via The Washington Times.
