Graham Platner Quits Senate Race After Rape Allegation
The Maine Democrat refused to apologize or take responsibility for his scandals.
Graham Platner, the Maine Democrat who won the primary to run against Republican Senator Susan Collins in November, quit the race Wednesday night, days before a state deadline to have his name taken off the ballot.
He bowed out in an emotional, 11-minute video posted to social media, a little more than 48 hours after a former girlfriend accused him of raping her after he broke into her home in a drunken encounter.
Mr. Platner, an oyster farmer and military veteran, said he is suspending his campaign but added, “I want to make clear, though, I intend to file my paperwork to withdraw.”
Democratic leaders in Maine said Wednesday their state committee “voted to hold a nominating convention to choose a new nominee if there is a vacancy to fill.”
The announcement — made before their nominee formally dropped out of the race — said the state party would “soon” announce the timeline and rules for that nominating convention.
But within hours of the Platner pullout, another voice emerged: Democrat Troy Jackson, who filed to create an “exploratory committee” for a Senate run Tuesday, took to social media to declare, “I’m in.”
A former Maine state Senate president, Mr. Jackson said, “There is a powerful movement of working class people in the state of Maine, and millions more across America who are ready to send a progressive fighter to the Senate. I’ve been fighting for that movement my whole life — and I’m sure as hell not backing down now, when this fight is needed most.”
Mr. Platner, who bills himself as a “foe of the oligarchy” on his X profile, ripped “a corporate media system” and “the political establishment” for his insurgency’s abrupt end, which came after Politico published the story Monday of Jenny Racicot, a 41-year-old Maine resident.
“It is a system that is built structurally to make sure that movements like ours cannot flourish, that if they begin to succeed, they can be crushed,” he said.
“The brutal political reality is that they are going to take everything away from us,” he went on. “Those in power who have the ability to do so are using these allegations as an excuse to take away all of the things that we need to run a campaign.”
He added, “We are going to lose all of the things that any campaign needs on the basic level simply to function. Larger organizations, the national level party, the bigger donor networks, they have all committed to spending no money in this race. If I’m in it, they would rather see Susan Collins win than have me be the next senator from Maine.”
Ms. Racicot said she’d dated Mr. Platner intermittently for more than two years. One night late in 2021, he came to her home uninvited and forced himself on her sexually despite her telling him to stop.
“I remember him grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me,” Ms. Racicot told Politico. “I remember the specific moment where I thought to myself, like, ‘This is no longer my choice.’”
She said she ended the relationship the next day but had a “huge moral conflict” about speaking out now because she supports his politics.
Earlier published allegations of Mr. Platner physically harassing Lyndsey Fifield, another ex-girlfriend, were dismissed by some supporters because she had worked as a conservative political operative.
Mr. Platner also drew fire for having sported a skull-and-crossbones tattoo which duplicated the Nazi Totenkopf, or death’s head, inking SS troops wore during the Second World War. He also allegedly sent text messages to women on the Kik social-media platform under the username “phustle0331.”
Although many national Democrats stood by Mr. Platner after the initial media reports came out in late May, his support rapidly diminished after Monday’s media firestorm. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat, and Bernie Sanders, Vermont independent, pulled their endorsements. New York Democrats Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who heads the party’s Senate campaign committee, said the party would no longer support Mr. Platner’s campaign.
In his Wednesday video, Mr. Platner again called the rape allegations “all false,” although he did not offer a specific rebuttal.
Despite state Democratic leaders promising an orderly succession, the struggle to replace Mr. Platner — who won his June 9 party primary with 70 percent of the vote, swamping outgoing Governor Janet Mills, who had quit campaigning — is likely to have chaotic elements.
Besides Mr. Jackson, seven other Maine Democrats have either garnered support or expressed interest in the race to replace Mr. Platner on the November ballot, the Bangor Daily News reported.
Ms. Collins’ reelection campaign has not issued a statement in response to Mr. Platner’s withdrawal.
The Maine GOP said Thursday morning, “As the campaign announcements flood in...let's remember that up until just this week, many of the new Democrat US Senate candidates were endorsed by and endorsed Graham Platner through the Nazi tattoo reveal, the sexting on Kik, and the blatant disrespect for women, veterans, and many different people groups.”
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