The latest accusations against Maine oyster farmer Graham Platner are leaving fellow Democrats in an uncomfortable holding pattern until Tuesday’s primary.
Some Democrats are wishcasting that Gov. Janet Mills — who suspended her campaign for Senate in April but is still on the ballot — could pull off a shocking upset in the election. Her allies in recent days have reminded supporters that Mills is on the ballot, but she has done no formal campaigning.
Others are putting their hope in an even unlikelier scenario: that Platner will exit the race on his own and allow the state Democratic Party to replace him at its convention in July.
Those wanting him out are praying that a significant protest vote emerges in Tuesday’s primary, where Platner is the only serious candidate still in the race. Platner polled at 76 percent to 10 percent for Mills in a University of New Hampshire poll conducted in late May, shortly before the latest allegations, setting a possible bar to measure how well he does on Tuesday.
“If we see out of the results on Tuesday that Mills was getting a lot more votes than one would think of somebody who suspended their campaign, I think there’s a sign that there’s a lot of protest and angst within the primary voters,” said Adam Cote, a longtime Maine Democrat who faced off with Mills in the 2018 gubernatorial primary and has not endorsed in the Senate race. “And that’s just the primary voters, that’s not even getting to the general election.”
If Platner bleeds a significant number of Democratic voters to Mills it could ramp up pressure on him to drop out of the race, multiple top Democratic strategists told POLITICO on Friday.
But such a scenario would also further deepen divisions in a party that needs to be united to defeat GOP Sen. Susan Collins this fall. During an appearance on MSNOW Thursday, Platner denied allegations of violence against an ex-girlfriend and reaffirmed his position in the race, saying he has “not once” considered dropping out. He has a scheduled campaign rally Friday night in Bar Harbor.
Many of Platner’s supporters remain on his side and dismissive of a recent New York Times report, painting it as character assassination.
On Thursday, the Times reported that Platner displayed “disturbing” behavior with several former partners. One of the women in the Times report also said Platner knew that his tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol — contrasting his public statements about it — and produced private texts to friends long before he publicly denied the knowledge, stating that he’d told her so.
It has led numerous Democrats to share concern about Platner’s candidacy.
“If he were running in Jersey, he’d either be thrown off the ballot or buried under the Meadowlands,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) said Friday, citing the latest allegations. “I think people in Maine should consider a different candidate right now. You know, Janet Mills is still on the ballot. I think people should be voting for another Democrat next week.”
Moderates like Gottheimer who were already not big fans of Platner were in the minority in speaking out publicly to say his past is disqualifying. Behind the scenes, however, there’s growing concern about his viability in November, especially given the importance of turning out moderate, middle-aged women that are a crucial bloc of Maine’s graying electorate.
Maine is the only blue state on Senate Democrats’ target list, and taking it out of play could sink the party’s strategy for flipping the chamber.
“In a seat that we critically need to pick up to have any chance of taking the Senate, this just isn’t good,” said a longtime Democratic fundraiser, granted anonymity to discuss the race candidly. “Doing a last-minute sub might be the best option, or the only option, but it certainly doesn’t give a lot of comfort to those of us who ask people to write checks.”
“If we have to wait till after the primary and hope they can talk him into dropping out … that would appeal to me,” said the fundraiser, who is also a major donor.
A Democratic Party official based in another state said they “don’t see pressure for him to drop out really ratcheting up until after the primary results.”
“That’s when the knives would really come out, especially if there’s another story with more allegations,” the official said.
Still, even among those who are hoping for a switch, there’s growing acceptance Platner probably won’t get on board. Democrats increasingly believe any effort to push him out of the race will have to come from within his supporter network, arguing that Senate Democratic leadership and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has limited leverage to force his hand because he was not the establishment’s pick to begin with.
“There’s pressure on the DSCC to get a different candidate in there,” said a national Democratic strategist working on various Senate campaigns. But “this is not unfortunately something the DSCC can snap their fingers and do.”
The DSCC did not respond to requests for comment.
Two progressive strategists in Platner’s orbit confirmed there have been no discussions about dropping out, and they are confident Platner will be able to mitigate the damage of recent reports by discussing his post-traumatic stress disorder.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who is rallying with Platner in Maine on Friday, said in a statement to POLITICO that Platner “himself has said he was in a dark place after his military service.”
“No one should excuse his past relationships or attack the women who have come forward, but he has accepted responsibility and worked hard to be a better man,” Khanna said. “He understands he was self-absorbed and misogynistic after tours as a frontline infantryman in Iraq. But he spent four years on the ocean as an oyster farmer and got to a better place. We need grace and redemption in America.”
Platner’s supporters have largely rallied around his cause, dismissing the latest reporting as inconsequential when compared to the magnitude of the policy stakes in the race.
“He was a mean boyfriend when he got out of the military and was drinking. Susan Collins was the defining vote for the Big Beautiful Bill,” said Maine state Rep. Valli Geiger, a Platner supporter.
Geiger, who appeared in a campaign ad for the oysterman earlier this year, said she doesn’t know whether Platner will be able to win in November, particularly if “the mainstream press continues to do character assassination for five months.” But she doubted any Democrat could replace him and maintain the grassroots support he has generated, questioning the motives of those focused on negative stories about him.
“They just want to defeat him. They just want to make sure that the status quo remains in place,” she said. “I think the fight’s worth having.”
Adam Wren, Chris Sommerfeldt, Erin Doherty, Shia Kapos and Melanie Mason contributed to this report.
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