Leaders of the Maine Democratic Party are still working toward a process to replace Graham Platner, without angering his supporters.
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Democrats in Maine sought to swiftly move on from Graham Platner’s failed Senate campaign Thursday. But as they began picking up the pieces of a campaign that flamed out as spectacularly as it had caught on, they remained divided and uncertain about how to keep the movement he had energized intact.
Several candidates who rushed to replace him late Wednesday and early Thursday — following his 11-minute, conspiracy-laden withdrawal video — told The Washington Post they would not accept Platner’s endorsement.
Meanwhile, the Maine Democratic Party worked to outline the details of the process to select a new nominee, which must be complete by July 27 under state law. State leaders met to consider a range of plans for holding a nominating convention. One of the key hang-ups, said a person familiar with the plans, is how to elect the delegates who vote on the new candidate in a representative way. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
A host of other questions remained unanswered, from how a nominating convention would be run to whether and how to vet potential replacements for a candidate who left the race because of a host of scandals, including a sexual assault allegation that he denied.
Platner privately told campaign staff on Wednesday night that he planned to officially file the paperwork removing himself from the ballot on Monday, two former Platner aides who were on the call told The Washington Post. That means Platner will wait until the deadline under state law to officially end his Senate campaign, a decision that could cause heartburn for Maine Democrats eager to move on from the candidate.
While officials plotted a path forward, many top Democrats in Maine spent the day debating whether Platner’s exit and his decision to bitterly blame “the establishment” for forcing him out would hurt the eventual nominee. Democrats are eager to field a strong challenger against Republican Sen. Susan Collins in a contest that could decide control of the Senate.
Even some former Platner aides worried Thursday that he damaged what he had built.
“He spent a year helping people to believe in a truly feel-good brand of politics that brought them together, often literally, and called out the real corruption baked into our political system,” said a former Platner aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the still-raw nerves among Democrats. “Then, for 11 minutes on Wednesday night, he told the same people that their work didn’t matter and that, no matter what they did. It was impossible to make change because invisible forces around them would never allow it.”
Some Democrats said Platner’s video threatened to rally his supporters against the state party and damage anyone nominated through their process.
“That video really made no one proud except for probably Graham Platner. It was quite unfortunate,” Adam Green, the head of a progressive group that supported Platner until this week, said on CNN. “This was certainly a setback” for progressive causes.
Others, however, contended that the video missed the mark so spectacularly that it could unite the party.
The video was “11 minutes of grievance and self-pity” that even die-hard Platner supporters have struggled to defend, said Ian Russell, a Democratic operative who works in Maine politics.
“He’s shown no grace or even any scintilla of responsibility for his actions,” Russell said. But “the video was so over-the-top and grievance-filled that it will make it easier for the party to come together.”
The tenor of Platner’s exit was important to him, a person familiar with its production told The Post, and was a condition of his decision to suspend his campaign. Platner, while holed up in his rural Maine home this week, told his most loyal aides that he would only suspend his campaign if he were allowed to say everything he wanted, the person said.
His remarks picked at a wound that the Democratic Party has spent a decade trying to heal.
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In 2016, supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vermont) insurgent presidential campaign blamed party officials for rigging the unexpectedly competitive Democratic primary for the more moderate Hillary Clinton. A unity message at that summer’s nominating convention failed to tamp down on the bitterness, and Clinton’s loss to President Donald Trump provided fuel for all sides in an acrimonious ideological split within the party.
Since then, as additional outsider candidates upend the Democratic establishment, party leaders have feuded with a restive progressive wing that argues Democrats are stifling the excitement of their base in search of more moderate candidates.
The Maine Democratic Party must now consolidate voters behind whoever emerges as the replacement nominee, someone they hope will appeal to both progressive and moderate voters needed to win in the state.
Four of the candidates vying to take over for Platner — former state senator Troy Jackson, brewery owner Dan Kleban, former congressional candidate Jordan Wood and former top Maine health official Nirav Shah — all told The Post that they would not accept Platner’s endorsement.
“This race should no longer be about Platner,” Shah said. “It should be about the people who supported him and uniting them to defeat Senator Collins.”
But each candidate made clear steps on Thursday toward winning over Platner’s base. Kleban said he would not vote for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) for Senate leadership, something that helped burnish Platner’s outsider image. Wood, after declining to endorse Platner, said he has “always been aligned with Graham on most issues” and noted they were “both young progressive reformers.” And Jackson officially announced his run by casting himself as a fighter for working-class people in Platner’s image, and later pledged to support Medicare-for-all in the Senate, the universal health care plan that Platner promoted.
“I’ve been fighting for that movement my whole life — and I’m sure as hell not backing down now, when this fight is needed most,” Jackson said.
At his formal campaign launch Thursday in Freeport, Shah made a direct appeal to Platner’s supporters.
“You have an important place in this campaign and we welcome your voices,” he said. “This campaign represents the values that we all care about.”
Bev Uhlenhake, the former chair of the Maine Democratic Party, said keeping Platner’s supporters aligned with Democrats will be “vital” to whoever succeeds him on the ballot.
“We’ve seen thousands of newly engaged Mainers in politics through the Platner campaign,” Uhlenhake said. “It’s vital to the eventual Senate candidate, and for the future of the Maine Democratic Party as a whole, that those folks continue to feel engaged. They need to be heard and understood, even if their voices sound angry.”
But Marcia Myers, chair of the Hancock County Democratic Committee, said she did not detect the resentment expressed by Platner in his exit video filtering down to voters.
The momentum that Platner built mattered to people, Myers said, and the Democrats she has spoken to are motivated. People are “coming out of the woodwork wanting to be delegates” for the convention to replace Platner, she said.
“He said it in his comments last night: ‘This is about the mission, not the man.’ And I really think people are embracing that idea,” Myers said. “I’m sure there may be some who feel they want to disconnect, but most of the people I’ve talked to have been in the trenches and they’re going to stay there.”
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