Inside the insurgent rise and rapid downfall of Graham Platner’s campaign

By Arit John, Arlette Saenz, Jeff Zeleny, CNN

(CNN) — Soon after news broke Monday that a woman who had previously dated Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner accused him of rape — an allegation he has denied — his campaign reached out to former Sen. Barbara Boxer.

The retired California Democrat had drafted an op-ed backing Platner and criticizing the record of her former Republican colleague, Maine Sen. Susan Collins. As droves of his allies began rescinding their endorsements and calling on him to drop out Monday, Platner’s campaign wanted to know if the article should still run, Boxer said.

She told them no.

“I still feel the way I do about Susan Collins, but I can’t support Graham Platner based on what’s come out,” Boxer told CNN on Wednesday. “I fought my whole life protecting women and can’t do it.”

Until this week, Platner had been able to withstand an onslaught of controversies over his old social media posts, a tattoo that resembles a Nazi symbol, his infidelity and accusations of unsettling behavior with former romantic partners. His stunning political rise, supporters said, showed that people can change and that his movement was stronger than the establishment forces that viewed him as a weak general election candidate.

But for many of those remaining supporters, a sexual assault allegation was a bridge too far.

Platner finally accepted political reality on Wednesday night and announced he was suspending his campaign, after an ordeal that dragged out for over two days. But he accepted virtually no blame in a defiant 11-minute video — either for the allegations, which he maintains are false, or for the predicament he put Maine Democrats in. They now have less than three weeks to coalesce around a new nominee in one of the most critical races for the battle for Senate control.

A handful of advisers had urged Platner to strike a gracious tone to his supporters in that video — even while denying the allegations — but he did not follow that guidance. A disagreement in language, along with his reluctance to accept his political fate, contributed to the delay in stepping aside, a person close to the campaign told CNN.

“Those in power, who have the ability to do so,” Platner ultimately said in his recorded video message, “are using these allegations as an excuse to take away all of the things that we need to run a campaign.”

The release of the video was timed to coincide with an all-hands staff video conference call Wednesday night. On that call, a participant said, Platner struck a far more conciliatory tone and thanked his young staff for dedicating themselves to his movement.

Yet, as he did on the video, he stopped short of apologizing.

For most staff members, the first time they watched the video was after their campaign call with Platner. His tone was widely criticized by Democrats, who feared it could sow deeper divisions, rather than attempt to bridge the party divide.

“All about him — and ego,” one disappointed Democratic staffer told CNN. “Not an ounce of humility.”

Genevieve McDonald, his former political director who quit the campaign last October and has since become a vocal critic, called the video “petulant and conspiratorial.”

“The reality is far less dramatic: a campaign built by consultants who thought they were kingmakers, was brought down by a handful of women with iPhones and the truth,” McDonald said in a comment to CNN.

Now, Democrats face an uncertain path forward in the only state Kamala Harris carried in 2024 where they have a shot at unseating a GOP senator. Once Platner formally files his paperwork to withdraw, which he told campaign staff he plans to do Monday, the Maine Democratic Party has until July 27 to present a new candidate to the secretary of state. Party members voted Wednesday to hold a nominating convention, but details about when it will be and how the process will unfold are still being decided.

Those questions about the process speak to a broader concern among those who support Platner’s politics, even if they no longer back him: will his replacement be another political outsider?

New candidates started entering the race before Platner announced he was stepping aside. Some in the progressive movement have started rallying behind former state Sen. Troy Jackson, who finished third in this year’s gubernatorial primary, during which he shared a stage with Platner and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Jackson, who filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday, has already sought to distance himself from Platner, and said he wouldn’t seek his endorsement.

“It’s unfortunate, but I just don’t want it,” Jackson said on NBC’s “Meet the Press Now” Wednesday.

A campaign haunted by controversy

Platner kicked off his longshot bid for the Senate nomination last August with a gritty campaign launch video that showed him farming oysters, chopping wood and railing against billionaires, what he said are corrupt politicians and an oligarchy crushing working class people in Maine and across the country.

His pitch was that his background — as an oysterman and a Marine veteran — would help him appeal to a broader swath of the electorate than other candidates. A wave of media profiles asked whether he could beat the party establishment, which had thrown its weight behind Gov. Janet Mills, and help reshape a party that was struggling to speak to White working class voters.

Some argued he was the future of the party. But within weeks, his past started to catch up to him.

News outlets unearthed old, since deleted Reddit posts. He’d called himself a “communist,” criticized White rural Americans as racist and called “all” police “bastards,” CNN’s KFile reported. In some of the most widely condemned posts, Platner downplayed sexual assault. He’d written that women worried about rape shouldn’t “get blacked out f****d up around people you aren’t comfortable with” and should “just take some responsibility for themselves.” Platner disavowed the old posts and said he didn’t want to be judged for the worst things he’d said on the internet more than a decade ago.

Weeks later, it emerged that Platner had a skull and cross bones tattoo that closely resembled a Nazi symbol. He apologized and announced that he’d gotten it covered up.

Amid this early swirl of controversies, Maine Beer Company founder Dan Kleban and former congressional aide Jordan Wood dropped their own bids to back Mills, who had entered the race after weeks of speculation. (They’ve both since thrown their hats back in the ring.)

But despite her long record in public service and broad name recognition, Mills struggled to gain traction against Platner.

“Mills barely ran a campaign, and she should have said no,” said a Democratic strategist who works on Senate campaigns, who asked for anonymity to speak candidly. “There were other candidates who would have run a great campaign that could have stepped up if she didn’t want to run the aggressive campaign necessary.”

In March, Mills’ campaign went negative, and began airing an attack ad blasting Platner’s old Reddit posts dismissing sexual assault. “Graham Platner: the closer you look, the worse it gets,” the narrator says.

It was too little, too late. The governor suspended her campaign at the end of April, clearing a path for Platner.

Unsettling behavior with women

As more details of Platner’s past behavior emerged, he and his allies sought to frame his campaign as a tale of redemption, accountability and second chances. His past mistakes, he said, were fueled by his PTSD from tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, which he has spoken about openly.

“Platner has said that he is not proud of who he was, and he has taken responsibility,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Platner supporter who called on him to drop out this week, told WCVB late last month. “He has asked the people of Maine to judge him, not for the worst things he did in the darkest part of his life, but based on the work he has done since then and his commitment to be out there fighting for working families every day.”

Warren and others stood by Platner after The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported on May 30 that his wife, Amy Gertner, had warned the campaign during its vetting process last year that he’d sent sexually explicit texts to other women early in their marriage. (Gertner said she thought she was confiding in a trusted aide, McDonald, and said the couple had done the “hard work” to move past the infidelity.)

Days later, during a meeting with Democratic senators at the party’s Senate committee headquarters in Washington, Platner addressed concerns from his potential future colleagues. At one point, Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith asked Platner directly if there were any more allegations about his conduct with women that could possibly come to light. He responded, “No.”

Platner’s coalition also stood by him when, days before the June 9 primary, The New York Times reported that some women he’d previously dated accused him of displaying unsettling — and in one case physically threatening — behavior toward them. Platner said in a statement that he’d been “open about what was a very dark period of my life where I struggled with undiagnosed PTSD, too often self-medicated with alcohol, and was a far from perfect boyfriend.” He said he took responsibility for that but denied the physically threatening behavior.

As some Democrats wavered, Mills — who had already dropped out — reminded voters she was still on the ballot. Platner went on to win a landslide victory, with 72% of the primary vote.

“If you believe, as I do, that we can change our politics and change our country, then you must also believe that people can change,” Platner said during his election night speech. “And the reason I believe that is because I have lived it.”

Platner had done what seemed impossible nearly 11 months earlier. He’d defeated a two-term governor who was recruited into the race by Senate Democrats’ campaign arm. He’d held his coalition together even as voters gained a fuller understanding of his past.

But some Democrats feared that there could be more shoes to drop about his treatment of women that would be a liability in his race against Collins, a five-term senator who’s prevailed in tough races before.

Speculation grew in recent days that a more serious allegation was set to drop and Platner cancelled campaign events.

“We’ve been hearing whispers of this rumor since last fall,” said the Democratic strategist who works on Senate campaigns. “Not specifically rape, but the idea that there are problematic interactions with women.”

On Monday, Jenny Racicot told Politico and CNN that Platner entered her home without permission and raped her while he was heavily intoxicated nearly five years ago when they were in a casual dating relationship. Platner denies the accusation.

But he soon began hemorrhaging support, including from his most devoted supporters.

“I have spoken with Graham Platner about the best path forward for Maine,” Sanders wrote on X Tuesday afternoon. “In light of these very serious allegations, I have recommended that he step aside.”

The final days of the campaign were spent navigating an exit strategy and feuding with state and national Democrats. Platner and his team demanded his supporters have a voice in shaping the process to replace him, while party leaders balked at his attempt to wield control over what comes next.

Platner’s campaign manager, Ben Chin, sent a text blast to supporters Wednesday, accusing the state party of allowing the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee “to send staffers to plan a potential nominating process behind closed doors.” The DSCC denied the claim in a statement.

A setback for the cause

The fallout from Platner’s rise and fall has left Democrats wondering why they didn’t heed the warning signs some in the party saw months ago.

Platner lost some supporters along the way, as a core team of out-of-state strategists guided his campaign. McDonald said she was one of his campaign’s “first gaslighting casualties” in a Washington Post op-ed that ran the day before the June 9 primary.

She has been criticized by the campaign for speaking to The New York Times about her conversation with Gertner about Platner’s sexual messages to other women, has become one of his most vocal critics.

“Democrats are being sold a narrative that Platner is the only choice for the race against Republican Sen. Susan Collins,” McDonald wrote. “Maine voters don’t have to accept that.”

And this week, some national Democrats quickly pointed to “red flags” from early in the campaign.

“It was clear from very early on that he had questionable moral character, that he had red flags in his past, and that those were going to be a serious barrier to his ability to win a general election,” said Jessica Mackler, the president of EMILY’s List, an organization that endorses women who support abortion rights and backed Mills.

The collapse of Platner’s campaign isn’t just a disappointment to progressives in Maine, but the broader movement, advocates argued.

Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said the goal isn’t just to elect “shake up the system economic fighters” in the 2026 midterms, but to show the Democratic Party that those kinds of candidates can win in swing states ahead of the 2028 presidential primaries.

“If the effect is that we nominate someone who loses the presidential election next cycle, because we fail to prove that bold, inspiring people can win, that’s really unfortunate,” Green said. “It definitely set back the cause.”

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CNN’s Dana Bash contributed to this report.