Maine Voters, It’s Not Too Late to Save Democrats from Graham Platner 

“To be clear, it’s the voters of Maine who thus far have chosen Graham Platner,” said Kate Bedingfield, a former Joe Biden administration aide, on CNN yesterday.  

But to be clear, Maine voters haven’t chosen anybody yet. Not a single vote has been counted for Platner in his entire life. While early voting has already begun, the Maine primary is on June 9.  

And over the weekend, Maine voters were given plenty of reasons to deny Platner the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.  

Platner may be the only person on the Democratic ballot running a well-financed campaign. But there are two other candidates on the ballot, each more accomplished, each who has been on a ballot before, each without Platner’s still-growing row of bright red flags. And because Maine has ranked-choice voting, voters can rank both of them.  

No Maine voter should enter a voting booth thinking the race is over, and Platner has already won just because that’s what Platner’s loyalists and many Republicans want you to think. 

On Saturday, the latest Platner scandal blew up. On Sunday, Platner made it worse. 

As you may already know, on Saturday, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that Platner’s wife, just days after his Senate campaign officially began last August, shared sexts he sent to several women mere months earlier. The Journal further reported that “Platner also has an active account on Kik, a popular, private messaging app. Platner’s profile shows a mirror selfie of him shirtless with a towel wrapped around his waist.” (He is identifiable by his body tattoos, though his face is cropped out, and his arm appears strategically placed where his controversial Totenkopf tattoo once was.) The conservative site The Maine Wire quickly published a piece emphasizing Kik’s unsavory reputation as a site frequented by teenagers and, as explained in a 2016 New York Times investigation, a hotbed for “inappropriate sexual content and behavior.” (Platner’s Kik profile is still active and accessible online.)  

Saturday evening, the Platner campaign posted a video from his wife Amy Gertner in which she assures, “Our marriage today is stronger than ever before” and saves her ire for the former campaign staffer Genevieve McDonald who was a source for the news stories: “I confided deeply personal details about my marriage to someone I considered a friend … and I am deeply hurt by her betrayal and the invasion of our privacy.”  

On Sunday, Platner spoke to reporters with Gertner by his side. He admitted nothing and offered no apology. Asked if “the stories are true, right, about the texts,” Platner responded, “No. No. This is the amazing part. The Wall Street Journal & The New York Times ran stories without any evidence besides the gossip from a former staffer. I’m sorry that’s frankly journalistic malpractice.” In fact, while McDonald told the Times that Platner “had been exchanging sexual messages with as many as a dozen women,” the outlet also cited “a current Platner campaign official” who “said Mr. Platner had been communicating with up to six women.” When Platner was asked on Sunday, “So are you confirming that the messages did not exist?” Platner replied with a dodge: “I’m confirming that what Genevieve McDonald said in The New York Times is not true.” 

Platner’s choice to dissemble makes the situation much worse.  

Morris Katz, a Platner consultant, declared on X, “It’s no one’s fucking business what happened in Graham & Amy’s marriage before he was ever a candidate for office.” That past marital indiscretions have no relevance to the job of U.S. Senator is not a wholly unreasonable argument, though we have many examples of infidelity by public officials sliding quickly into illegal behavior, be it sexual harassment or financial crimes committed to cover up their tracks.  

We also have examples of philanderers getting elected and re-elected, so, as other Platner defenders argue, we need not assume this latest controversy means Platner can’t win. Fair enough, we can’t know the latest revelations mean Platner can’t win. But we also don’t know what else controversial may be lurking in Platner’s past. 

Platner himself has lost the credibility to reassure. In January, asked by CNN if he had “other skeletons from your past,” Platner said, “No.” Asked by The New York Times two weeks ago, “Is there something new you want to get ahead of?” Platner said, “No.” On Sunday, he couldn’t even talk straight to reporters about sexts his campaign already admitted he sent. Trust is broken.  

The damage of a Platner nomination could go beyond Maine. Already, we are seeing Republicans gleefully use Platner to charge Democrats with hypocrisy. Painting the Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton—the Texas Attorney General who was impeached over bribery allegations connected to the employer of his mistress—as ethically compromised becomes harder if Democrats are also downplaying Platner’s controversies. Charging Donald Trump’s Republican Party with taking us down the road of fascism is harder when Democrats have to keep arguing that Platner didn’t know about the Nazi origins of his Totenkopf. 

There’s no such thing as a zero-risk candidate, but Platner’s campaign has been a series of red flags warning us he is a high-risk candidate, each flag redder than the last. Why should Maine Democratic primary voters take such a risk? Yes, he ran the best campaign in the winter and spring. Yes, he raised the most amount of money. Yes, his poll numbers have been good to date. But if more shoes drop, all that will be meaningless.  

And yes, Governor Janet Mills suspended her lackluster campaign (I argued last week that Mills should unsuspend her campaign, but even if she doesn’t, she remains on the ballot), and David Costello, a career government aide, is currently running a lackluster campaign. Yes, it is unlikely that either of them will best Platner on June 9. But they definitely won’t if voters who would rather not vote for Platner do it anyway out of resignation.  

If you are a Maine Democratic primary voter (both Democrats and unenrolled voters can participate in the June 9 primary) who believes either Mills or Costello would be more likely to beat Susan Collins than the guy who spewed racist and misogynist rhetoric online, blamed women for getting raped, mocked a Purple Heart recipient for getting shot on the battlefield, has a profile on a notorious messaging app and was using it to sext behind his wife’s back last year, then there’s no harm in ranking them number one and number two, in whatever order, on your ranked choice ballot.

Of course, if you simply believe Platner is the better candidate on the merits, then double down! Matt Stoller, the populist commentator, argued on X, “I like that he’s messy. The rule following perfect resume ladder climbing Harvard law grads are the actually [sic] lizard people creeps.” That strikes me as a wee bit of a broad brush to paint, and neither Mills nor Costello even went to Harvard anyway (unlike Stoller, albeit as an undergrad). But regardless, voters who trust Platner can and will win should stand by their man. Others, however, need not and should not feel pressured to vote for a candidate they don’t trust.