A sexual assault allegation against Graham Platner has thrown Democrats’ Maine strategy into turmoil.
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To take back the Senate, Democrats almost certainly need to beat Sen. Susan Collins (R) in Maine. Yet their candidate, Graham Platner, is under pressure from party leaders to drop out after a sexual assault allegation leveled at him this week by a woman he previously dated — an allegation he denies.
“We needed everything to go just exactly perfectly to be able to flip the Senate,” said senior Democratic strategist Jim Manley, “and this isn’t going to help.”
Here’s why Maine matters and what Democrats can still do.
Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate majority, meaning Democrats need an overall gain of four seats to take control. Because not every Senate seat is up for election in November, Democrats are facing some daunting challenges to win enough races to retake the majority.
Democrats need to defend seats in the competitive swing states of Michigan and Georgia, then beat Republicans in Maine and North Carolina, and then win at least two races in redder states such as Ohio, Alaska, Texas or Iowa.
Donald Trump won most of these states in the 2024 presidential race. In some states, such as Texas, Democrats haven’t won a Senate race in decades.
Maine is different. The state voted for Kamala Harris for president in 2024, and Democrats are trying to unseat Collins at a time when the Republican brand under Trump is deeply unpopular.
“There’s virtually no path back to the majority for Democrats without defeating … Collins,” wrote Jessica Taylor, who analyzes Senate and governor races for the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.
Platner already was facing allegations that he sent sexually explicit text messages to women while married, had volatile relationships with women and had a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol that he has since covered up.
Up until now he has been combative in the face of the allegations, acknowledging he went through a period of “darkness” when he returned from combat tours in Iraq. But his tone has changed with this sexual assault allegation.
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Manley blamed the party’s populist wing for pushing Platner, a rural oyster farmer and Marine Corps veteran, when Gov. Janet Mills (D) was also running and had proved she could win statewide. (She dropped out just before the Democratic primary). Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) were some of Platner’s most high-profile supporters earlier this year.
Outsiders are certainly having a moment in Democratic politics; they’ve recently toppled sitting lawmakers in New York and Colorado in primaries. Some Democrats championed Platner’s roughness, saying voters found it fresh.
“The left was willing to overlook his obvious flaws,” Manley said, “and now it’s come to blow up in all of our faces.”
Platner denies the sexual assault allegation but said he was “mindful of the political reality” that the reporting will “inflict” on his campaign. It’s possible that he will drop out of the race.
It’s not clear who might replace him, my Washington Post colleagues report. One Democratic pollster said that hours after the revelations, she was approached about helping poll for potential replacements. Under Maine law, Platner has to decide on the race by Monday: withdraw and Democrats can slot in a replacement by July 27, or dig in and leave them running a wounded nominee against Collins.
It would be a huge forfeit for Democrats in an election season that had been lining up well for them. Several of Trump’s major policies are unpopular, including tariffs and his signature tax-and-spending law, which Senate Republicans helped pass.
“Even red states aren’t safe when you see a president whose numbers have dropped as much as Trump’s have,” Taylor said in an interview earlier this year.
Amber Phillips writes The 5-Minute Fix newsletter, a quick analysis of the day’s biggest political news. Send her an email here, or ask a question that could be featured in an upcoming newsletter.
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