Maine oysterman Graham Platner has dropped his bid to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins after an allegation of sexual assault led to prominent Democrats abandoning his campaign.
Platner, a political novice, saw his campaign rocked when Politico reported that he had sexually assaulted an ex-girlfriend, which he vehemently denied. The revelation, however, came after several other reports of potentially troubling behavior and past history dogged Platner throughout his campaign.
His exit came just days before the July 13 deadline for Democrats to remove Platner from the ballot and after a number of Democratic Senators and left-wing advocates called on him to step aside.
Maine’s seat, currently held by five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins, is a must-win if Democrats they want to flip the Senate. Democrats in Maine now have until July 27 at 5 p.m. to replace Platner.
It is not clear how the state Democratic Party would go about replacing Platner, who had raised a significant amount of money and earned the support of the party’s progressive wing, winning endorsements from New England Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Platner and the Maine Democratic Party had a tense back-and-forth about the process to succeed him as the nominee for the Senate race.
But the report in Politico was not the first major controversy Platner has faced.
He came under criticism for a host of his previous posts on Reddit where he opined on why Black people do not tip and sexual assault. He faced additional scrutiny for a tattoo on his chest that resembled a Nazi Totenkopf symbol used by SS units during the Holocaust.
Platner denied that he had any knowledge of the tattoo’s origins, which he said he received in Croatia when serving in the military and apologized for his past online comments, attributing them to dealing with untreated post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps.
He again came under fire when stories in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal reported that he had exchanged sexually explicit text messages with other women shortly after his marriage. An additional story in The Times reported that he engaged in “unsettling” behavior.
Despite this, it appeared that Democratic voters brushed off the controversy. Maine Gov. Janet Mills, 78, the preferred candidate of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, suspended her campaign due to a lack of money and a campaign that largely avoided retail politics. When Mills ran an ad highlighting Platner’s comments, it almost immediately backfired.
Platner also visited Capitol Hill as it appeared the field looked increasingly clear for him to be the sole candidate to challenge Collins, who has held the seat since 1996.
The top candidates to replace Platner on the ballot now include Troy Jackson, who served as president of the Maine Senate; Maine Beer Company co-founder and former Senate candidate Dan Kleban; Nirav Shah, the former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention; and Mattie Daugherty, the current president of the Maine Senate.
Many Democrats in Maine had opted to run instead for governor, including Jackson and Shah. Some feared that Collins could pull off another upset in the way that she did in 2020 when she shocked many by winning re-election despite Joe Biden winning the state.
But the report from Politico rattled both Platner’s supporters on the left and mainstream Democrats. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who shared a political adviser with Platner in Morris Katz, called on him to exit, as did many other Democrats. Sanders, Platner’s political mentor and first major booster, also said Platner needed to step aside.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the chief outlet meant to elect Democrats, put out a statement all but cutting Platner off.
“The allegations reported today are incredibly disturbing – violence, abuse and sexual assault are absolutely unacceptable,” Schumer and DSCC Chairwoman Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. “The DSCC will not invest in the Maine Senate race if Platner remains on the ballot.”
But time is already moving quickly and Democrats in Maine will need to find a candidate by the end of the month to raise money, run advertisements and sell a credible campaign against Collins. The New York Times reported how Platner and his allies hoped to have some say in who his successor would be or at least ensure his replacement would be from the progressive populist wing of the Democratic Party that Platner represented.
Shortly before his exit, the Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson criticized a stonewalling Platner and his campaign team.
“While the Platner campaign remains focused on distracting from the job of defeating Susan Collins in November with false accusations against us, the Maine Democratic Party remains hyper focused on developing a representative, transparent and inclusive process to select a new nominee when he chooses to withdraw from the race,” she said in a statement. At the same time, Murphy-Anderson praised Platner’s volunteers and said they would have a role in the new campaign.
“While we may be frustrated with Graham Platner’s continued efforts to manipulate this process, we are so thankful for his supporters and all of their efforts to defeat Susan Collins – they are a vital part of our Party and deserve to participate in an open process to select Platner’s replacement.
