Graham Platner was always a risk for the Democrats. The Maine Senate candidate’s supporters shrugged off the Nazi tattoo and the mountain of old incendiary Reddit posts, drawn to his charisma and ready to believe in his redemption arc. Putting real people in Washington, they argued, meant accepting the real-life baggage that came with it, even if it might get exposed in the gauntlet of the campaign.
But now the party is confronting the potential costs of that risk. In the last two weeks, revelations that Platner sexted women early in his marriage and accusations from an ex-girlfriend that he was physically threatening have disturbed national Democrats and raised questions about what other damaging revelations might drop between now and November.
On the eve of Tuesday’s Democratic primary in Maine, Democrats desperate to defeat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November face a conundrum. Platner is the party’s de facto nominee. He has denied acting violently toward an ex-girlfriend and says he won’t quit the race. Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who suspended her Senate campaign in April as Platner rolled to a wide lead, put out a statement reminding voters she’s still on the ballot. But the 78-year-old has not formally relaunched her campaign The same party leaders who were powerless to stop Platner as he rose in the primary have no formal mechanism to force him to leave the race—or even consensus on whether that would be the smartest move.
“I think we all have this fantasy Mills shocks everyone,” says Adam Lee, a Mills supporter and Democratic fundraiser in Maine. “But Graham has such a huge lead. And here, the people that care about stuff he’s said still care, and the people that don’t care still don’t care.”
Read More: Inside Graham Platner’s Controversial Rise.
Conversations with Democratic strategists in Washington and Maine reveal a frustrated party uncertain about how to proceed. Many are scared to jeopardize Platner’s chances. Others worry about more scandals to come, and say standing behind Platner in the meantime would be abandoning its values. “We are stuck,” as one senior Democratic Senate aide puts it.
It’s hard to expect the Democrats to act decisively when they can’t even decide who’s to blame for the predicament. Some blame the faction of party leaders who rallied behind Platner in spite of his warts. “[Senate Democratic Leader Chuck] Schumer warned us of this. We did not listen,” says the senior Democratic aide. An elected Democratic leader in Washington blamed Schumer’s meddling on Mills’ behalf. “He’s to blame for Platner’s rise as much as the broader anti-incumbent sentiment,” this Democrat says. “He ends up elevating the people he’s trying to take down.” Neither position fully acknowledges the fact that Platner’s support among Maine Democrats appears to be durable. Voters recognized he was a risk, and are poised to choose him anyway.
From the get-go, Schumer knew the Democrats needed Maine. Without the state, there would be almost zero chance the party could regain the majority in the Senate in November. So Schumer, who is increasingly on borrowed time with his left flank, told allies to flood the state’s septuagenarian governor, who is term-limited, with appeals to do her “patriotic duty.” Collins could be beaten, the pitch went, and the money would be there if Mills would jump in.
In conversations with three Democratic donors who heard Schumer’s pitch about Maine, it’s clear the Democratic Leader thought Mills—who would have been the oldest first-term senator in U.S. history if elected—would have been a stronger candidate. Collins is a tough campaigner who can straddle the line as reliable party player and outspoken maverick. A newcomer would have a tough time besting the five-term incumbent. Schumer went all-in. Voters in Maine did not listen. (Neither Schumer nor the DSCC responded to requests for comment.)
But despite her popularity in Maine, Mills’ run never took off. In an era when voters are demanding change, the steady-as-she-goes term-limited Governor could not find traction. Instead Democrats in the state gravitated toward the newcomer. They thought Platner was a compelling figure, a harbormaster and veteran ready to buck the system.
Then, of course, Platner’s history started coming to light. In October, he had to answer for the resurfacing of angry, sexist, and often vulgar Reddit posts he wrote during what he acknowledges was a troubled stretch of his life. It also came out in October that a tattoo he’d gotten in 2013 while in the Marines bore a strong resemblance to the Nazi totenkopf, a hate symbol infamously worn by SS guards at concentration camps. Platner had it covered up and denied knowing its meaning. His campaign survived it all.
But recently, rumors started swirling that there was another bomb to drop. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times reported in late May that Platner’s wife had told a campaign staffer he’d sent sexually explicit messages to women early in their marriage. Kik, an app Platner was using to message women, is frequently used for anonymous interaction, which has made it a target of online safety concerns. (Platner has said he only exchanged messages with consenting adult women on the app.) Another story in the Times published Thursday quoted ex-girlfriends who described toxic relationships. One ex, Lyndsey Fifield, who has also worked in Republican politics, said Platner was physically intimidating. He grabbed her roughly by the shoulders, she said, and once held her in a room against her will. (Other former partners defended Platner, who acknowledged bad behavior but denies ever physically hurting an ex.)
Some Platner backers have pointed to Fifield's resume as a conservative political activist to try to discredit her comments. Genevieve McDonald, Platner’s former Democratic Political Director, who has taken heat for confirming the sexting scandal to the NYT after Platner's wife confided in her, objected to that characterization of Fifield. “A week ago critics denounced this as a Democratic hit job in service of Mills and today they are saying it's a Republican hit job," McDonald told TIME. "But honestly, I’ve spoken with women on both sides of the aisle who are throwing themselves on the sword regardless of political alliances to warn us he’s a bad guy. We should listen."
On the heels of the May stories, Platner flew to Washington to meet with Democratic senators, where he faced questions about what more could surface. He sat for a 30-minute live interview on MS Now with Chris Hayes, who asked whether texts or pictures could still come out. Platner said he wasn’t worried—but he also didn’t say no.
“I went through my life, through a number of years struggling and not exactly acting with the best behavior,” Platner said. I've been very, very open about that, and if people would like to continue to drag things up from that time in my life, I'm sure that we are going to see at some point somebody attempt to do exactly that.”
Platner’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests from TIME for interviews after extended conversations with the candidate and people around him in April. At that point, he was already answering for his past indiscretions on the campaign trail, often drawing applause from packed auditoriums as he did so.
In a statement Saturday, Platner campaign manager Ben Chin projected confidence. "Since this campaign launched, we have been and remain deeply humbled by the support and loyalty of this movement," Chin said. "Mainers know Graham, they understand what he stands for, and they believe in what this campaign is fighting for. Lifting people up and fighting for working Mainers has been and always will be our priority. And if there's any doubt, just wait for the results on Tuesday night."
The campaign released a memo last week that showed a rise in fundraising even as the scandals swirled. Some in the party rallied behind him. On Friday, Platner appeared at an event in Bar Harbor with U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat. “Platner understood that those years that he came back were not the best years of his life. Then he, unlike others, took accountability for it. And he’s worked to be a better man,” Khanna said. Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii who is widely expected to be Schumer’s understudy in the next Congress, is still planning to join Platner for a fundraiser Sunday night. Send. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who have endorsed him, also underscored their support over the weekend.
Other potential colleagues were less forgiving. “I look forward to the day where I am not answering every single week a question about bad behavior by another dude,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin said when asked about accusations against Platner live on MS Now. “I'm sick of it. We got a lot of bigger issues to fry here.”
Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, who has frequently criticized Platner, told CNN: "The thing he has going for him is the [list of controversies is] so long, you lose count of all the things," Fetterman said. "Every other day, there's a new one."
Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., called the allegations of “threatening behavior and antisemitism” against Platner “serious,” saying they “deserve scrutiny.” She stopped short, however, of calling on him to drop out of the race. “Ultimately the people of Maine will decide who has the character and judgment to best represent them,” Hassan wrote. Her fellow New Hampshire Democrat, retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, said it’s up to her state’s neighbors to pick their fate. “It sounds like they’re serious allegations,” Shaheen told NBC News.” But you know, it’s up to the voters in Maine to decide.”
If Platner wins on Tuesday as expected, he would have until mid-July to drop out of the race in order for the party to appoint a replacement. There’s no indication that’s something he’s considering. But some Democrats are holding out hope. “We have until July 13 for Graham Platner to make a decision that he is not more important than the broader project of preserving our democracy,” says a national party official who lambasted the Platner campaign for its handling of the scandals, calling the “drip, drip, drip” of incremental headlines devastating and a distraction from a favorable midterm cycle.
But it’s not clear that national input will matter. In Maine, part of Platner’s appeal has been a rejection of the pundit class. Several voters told TIME the onslaught of attention to Platner’s past makes them more inclined to stick by the candidate. “He still maintains some strong principles that I think are important,” says Alex Poliakof, an 82-year-old independent. “Maybe I’m naive, but I see it as the other side just digging for everything they can get, and for the people that are for Platner, it goes in one ear and out the other.”
Karen Varney, a 69-year-old retired school counselor and Democrat from Augusta, spoke to TIME from a girls’ trip in Northport, where she and three other women in their 60s were all sticking by Platner. “I had a friend ask me what exactly sexting is—she’s a retired elementary school teacher,” Varney says. “I told her and she’s like, ‘Is that all?’” Varney has voted for Platner by mail and says she’s canvassing for him on Monday. “For him to apologize and say he’ll do better—when’s the last time you heard a politician say that?” she says. “I have real high hopes. I think he’s still the only way to beat Susan Collins, and I think he’ll be a good disruptor.”
Maine is a historically Independent state with a slight Democratic registration edge. But Collins has survived headwinds here before and even a slight erosion of base support in November could be a problem for Platner. “I have many, many women friends and Jewish friends who say, ‘I just can’t vote for him,’” says Lee, the Mills supporter in Maine who said he will back Platner in the general election. Lee thinks Collins’ legacy—she cast her 10,000th consecutive vote in the Senate as Platner was answering questions about sexts —also helps her. “If we’re not going to win the Senate, I’d just as soon have the head of appropriations be from Maine,” Lee said.
In Ellsworth, independent voter Bobbi O’Brien, who has voted for Collins in the past, was gearing up for the busy wedding season in Maine with her catering and events business when a Platner canvasser came to her door last week. Even the volunteer, O’Brien said, seemed to share in her conflicted feelings in the wake of the recent stories. “We had a long discussion about this. We believe in his fundamentals, ya know—but what is the mud-breaking quotient? And on a broader question, what is the moral base for this country anymore?”
O’Brien said she’d likely vote for Platner. But her equivocation underscored the conflicting emotions Democrats from D.C. to Bangor are feeling.
“I can’t say I’m jumping in with both feet. I keep thinking, like, what is our expectation of the people we put in power? What do we want to hold them to vs. what is their message?” O’Brien says. “To me, Graham’s message is really strong, and it resonates with so many middle-class people who feel we’re not being taken seriously and treated fairly in this country. So there’s the dilemma, isn’t it?”
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