The Nazi tattoo was not bad enough to force Graham Platner to abandon his Senate bid, his defenders argued earlier this year. Any young Marine, under the heavy influence of alcohol and immaturity, might see a skull and crossbones and think: Badass. The now-deleted Reddit posts mocking rural white people, insulting soldiers and getting them attacked? Well, chalk that up to the same. Of course, sending sex messages outside of marriage is not appropriate, but Platner’s wife assured us that the couple had recovered. And never mind the allegations of volatile behavior from several former friends; one of them is a Republican activist.
But when? Politics information on Monday that a woman had accused Platner of rape, even his staunchest supporters began calling for him to leave. And tonight, Oysterman finally gave in: “For the movement to continue, it can’t be me. Because of that, we’re suspending campaign activities,” he said in a video posted on social media. But Platner added to the problems facing Democrats as he left the race. He vehemently denied allegations of sexual harassment—and seemed to imply that the party establishment was somehow responsible. “We did it the right way. We did it the way we were told we should make changes,” he said. “And now they won’t let us get it.”
Democrats never won easily in Maine, where for nearly 30 years electoral stalwart Susan Collins has held her Senate seat. But add up all of Platner’s baggage, and defeating him can be a daunting task. Now the Democrats have a chance to replace Platner with a new candidate – someone who, perhaps, less it’s overdone-and increased their efforts to turn Collins’ seat.
But every silver lining has its corresponding cumulonimbus, and in this case, it’s that Platner has assembled a powerful grassroots coalition in Maine that may or may not be transferred. It depends on who the party replaces him with—and how. “They can get a mulligan,” political analyst Charlie Cook, who lives in Maine, told us. “That doesn’t mean they’re going to hit it well.”
Tinsisted on Platner’s candidacy– first little by little and then all at once – has Democrats across the country throwing up their hands in anger. The party must flip at least four GOP-held Senate seats in November to capture a majority, and this particular seat has long been considered the most important, and perhaps most likely, up for grabs: Maine is the only state Kamala Harris won in 2024 where a Republican incumbent is now up for re-election. Collins, who is running for a sixth term, is a unicorn in these turbulent times. In 2020, he beat a well-funded Democrat, Sara Gideon, by nearly nine points even as Joe Biden carried the state by roughly the same amount. But Collins is now 73 years old, and recently, his approval ratings have dropped.
For months last year, Democrats in Maine and Washington were waiting for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, two-term Governor Janet Mills, to decide whether to run. Mills initially expressed uncertainty about the race and postponed a decision until last fall. Other war-tested Democrats were not interested or chose other races.
Platner suffered a vacuum, who emerged last season unexpectedly but with a well-coordinated and well-organized campaign managed by consultants who worked with high-profile rebel candidates: John Fetterman in the Pennsylvania Senate, in 2022 (before his most recent move), and Zohran Mamdani in the Mayor of New York5. a charismatic oyster farmer with a record of military combat who could channel the growing power of the left and growing voter distaste for establishment politicians. By the time Mills finally announced his candidacy, in October, many of the voters he would have relied on in the primary had already decided to support Platner.
Platner led Mills in almost all public polls, sometimes by wide margins and despite revelations about his past. In late April, Mills, who is 78, suspended his campaign, essentially conceding the Democratic nomination to Platner.
Establishment Democrats were outraged, and not just because they found Platner’s behavior personally offensive and politically damaging. They saw a campaign that seemed to make little effort to vet a first-time candidate, and a candidate that didn’t appear to be honest in his own campaign. “If we’re going to start running people who are not normal, we have to be more aggressive in how they run their campaigns,” Yemisi Egbewole, a Democratic strategist who worked in the White House for Biden, told us a few weeks ago. “We can bring people out of anonymity, but it is the responsibility of the candidates themselves and also the people running this candidate to create the right narrative.”
Some Democrats questioned whether Platner was the “real” labor activist he claimed to be. He was educated at expensive private schools in New England and, like many future congressional candidates, worked as a staffer on Capitol Hill. Perhaps the biggest customer of his oyster business is a nearby restaurant owned by his mother. Matt Bennett, co-founder of the moderate Third Way, which endorsed Mills, told us in an interview last month that Platner “feels like a DC guy’s idea of a working-class candidate.”
The collapse of Platner’s campaign forced the reckoning of his most loyal supporters. And I think they did: Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, left-wing broadcaster Hasan Piker, and many other progressives who had stuck with Platner through the drip of suspicions withdrew their support this week after Platner’s ex-boyfriend claimed that he broke into her home in 2021 and raped her. (Platner has called that claim “completely untrue.”)
“The bottom line is, there are no secrets in politics,” Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, a group backed by Sanders, told us yesterday. “Candidates should be open to voters. We grassroots organizers invest a lot of time and energy in developing these movements, and it’s sad when we are disappointed by our standard-bearers.” Did he feel betrayed by Platner? “It’s a gut punch, given the level of energy and enthusiasm that he introduced,” Geevarghese said. “You feel so desperate.”
The questions now that’s how the party responds. “It is very important that Democrats act with confidence and clarity in deciding on their strategy moving forward,” David Farmer, a Maine Democratic strategist, told us. “The longer this goes on, the weaker chance we’ll have in November.” Who will replace Platner as the party’s nominee—and can that candidate reunite a coalition that, until recently, seemed at least as likely to give Democrats a crucial Senate seat?
Perhaps just as important: How will the replacement be chosen? State law requires a replacement to be named by July 27, so the state party must decide quickly on the process to elect him—something officials said yesterday they were prepared to do and would have done now if not for Platner’s animosity. “We look forward to making this process public as soon as Graham Platner officially withdraws from the race,” the executive director of the Maine Democratic Party said in a video statement.
All options seem to be on the table: State party leaders may meet behind closed doors to choose a new candidate. They can hold a party conference, where government members will choose a candidate. They can hold a caucus. Perhaps the most likely move is to deploy a statewide version of the limited primary that some Democrats wanted the party to do in 2024 before anointing Harris as Biden’s replacement on the ticket. “The truth is, they have to choose a process that party members will accept as valid,” Mark Brewer, chair of the political science department at the University of Maine, told us. “If it’s a process that’s perceived to be controlled by the so-called establishment, they won’t accept that.”
Already, the Democrats are picking their horses. Some of Platner’s supporters quickly endorsed Troy Jackson, the former state Senate president who earned Sanders’ endorsement in his gubernatorial bid earlier this year. Jackson, who finished third in the race, filed his Senate nomination papers yesterday and announced his candidacy shortly after Platner’s announcement. His supporters include Our Revolution, which endorsed Platner last summer and, calling for his departure on Monday, warned the Democratic Party against replacing him with “another candidate of the status quo.”
Platner, too, was trying to convince who the party might choose to replace him before agreeing to resign. “The ballot line is for the people of Maine,” he said in a statement tonight. A few hours earlier, his campaign was asking for volunteers to test on Platner’s next move, writing that the Democratic Party “must consult the opinions and suggestions of the people who created” the movement. But some in the party were concerned that giving Platner a say in the decision would weaken the new nominee. Republicans clearly enjoy this prospect. “The Democrat candidate in Maine will either be a rapist with a Nazi tattoo, or someone who will elect him with the same ‘values and vision,'” Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, chairman of the National Republican Senate Committee, said in a statement.
Some suggest that perhaps this moment presents an opportunity for Democrats to move toward the center. Soon voting of the Maine Senate race showed Platner running behind the Democratic general nominee. Although Platner “had united the Democratic base, there’s no question about it, his problem was reaching beyond it,” Cook said.
Perhaps, Cook and other analysts suggested, another candidate might appeal better to independents in Maine who are tired of Collins but less eager to embrace the limelight. Someone like state Rep. Jared Golden—who recently recused himself amid controversy over the job—or Mills. Or maybe that person is Nirav Shah, the former director of Maine’s CDC, who came in second in the gubernatorial race. In his statement announcing his intention, Shah asked potential candidates to agree to participate in at least one televised debate and hold town halls “in every corner of the state.”
Cook said that a regular Democrat could win in Maine. But especially these days, the Democratic party doesn’t like general information—or safe or milquetoast or whatever synonyms we use these days for average. The core wants fire and anger. And this puts Democrats in Maine somewhere between a rock and a hard place: Replace Platner with an ideological progressive, and you might have a base, but you might not appeal to Maine independents. Replace him with Mills-closer ability to be selected candidate, and many disillusioned voters may stay home in November.
Platner’s resignation gives Democrats a reprieve—but also a whole new problem.
