(LifeSiteNews) — National Democrats find themselves scrambling to regroup after a woman came forward to accuse Graham Platner, the party’s embattled nominee for U.S. Senate in Maine, of rape with a story that party members are taking seriously enough to openly discuss forcing him to drop out of the race.
Platner is a veteran who served three tours with the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq and one tour in Afghanistan with the Army National Guard. The former defense contractor and oyster farmer is running to unseat incumbent U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a long-serving liberal Republican. A month ago, the RealClearPolitics polling average had him leading Collins by almost eight points, giving Democrats hopes he could be the key to flipping the seat, but that lead has narrowed to less than a percentage point after a deluge of scandals.
On Monday, Politico revealed the gravest of those scandals yet by reporting on the story of Maine resident Jenny Racicot, who years ago allegedly had an “on-and-off” relationship with Platner for two years that she says culminated with him coming to her home one night in 2021, drunk and uninvited, and “forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
Politico says it was able to corroborate parts of Racicot’s story by speaking with someone in whom Racicot confided about it as well as reviewing communications about Platner that Racicot had had with her therapist and an acquaintance she warned away from him.
Racicot had previously publicly accused the candidate of “reckless” and “unsettling” behavior but held back the assault charge until, she says, she saw the reaction to another ex-girlfriend of Platner’s, conservative activist Lyndsey Fifield, describing him as abusive and misogynistic (though not outright violent). Fifield accused the press of using her to mischaracterize the allegations as partisan and distract from other victims.
“My part of the story was just a read-over,” Racicot said. “And the story was Lyndsey, and the accusations of her being politically motivated.” She also said she “didn’t come forward sooner” partly due to the “huge moral conflict that I had between supporting his politics but not supporting him as a person.”
The Platner campaign has denied the allegations, calling them “troubling, serious, and false. Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically untrue.” But several national Democrats are unconvinced.
“I’ve been very clear that sexual assault or violence against women is a red line,” Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna of California said. “These allegations are very serious and credible. Graham Platner should drop out from the race. I am withdrawing my endorsement.”
“The allegations against Graham Platner are troubling and deeply serious.” Democrat U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona said. “I am rescinding my endorsement.”
“There can be no tolerance for sexual assault. Working families are counting on Democrats to win the Senate election in Maine to unrig our economy and hold Donald Trump accountable,” Democrat U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said. “With so much at stake, the best path forward is for Graham Platner to step aside as the Democratic nominee and address these serious allegations outside this Senate race.”
The pro-Democrat Senate Majority PAC has also announced it is withdrawing its financial support for Platner’s campaign, though the Democrat Party apparatus has so far been unable to pressure him to drop out. Platner has reportedly told party officials he is open to withdrawing but only if his replacement comes from “his wing of the party.”
This is far from the first headache Platner has given those hoping to oust Collins.
Among them have been a skull-and-crossbones tattoo resembling a Nazi death’s-head symbol (he claimed the resemblance was purely accidental), old social media comments mocking combat veteran and Purple Heart recipient Teddy Daniels as a “dumb motherf***er” who “didn’t deserve to live” after surviving a Taliban ambush, a wealth of crude sexual comments on the platform Reddit, and accusations of misrepresenting the circumstances of his own service in the course of attacking Collins for having “voted to send me to Iraq” when in fact he chose to enlist after the Iraq War had begun.
On May 30, The Wall Street Journal reported that Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, notified the campaign within days of its launch that her husband’s phone contained “sexually explicit texts with several women” that could pose future political headaches. Campaign aides “ultimately decided the texts were a private matter that was being handled by the couple in marriage counseling,” according to the report. Further, he sent them via Kik, a platform described by the National Center for Sexual Exploitation (NCSE) as a “predator’s paradise.”
Democrats’ slowness to disavow Platner contrasts sharply with their handling of rape allegations that suit their political interests.
Near the end of the fall 2018 confirmation hearings for Trump-appointed future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a trio of women – Christine Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez, and Julie Swetnick – came forward to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual assault. The judge forcefully denied the claims, all of which lacked corroborating evidence.
None of the people Ford claims attended the party where Kavanaugh allegedly tried to rape her could recall any such event, and critics identified numerous inconsistencies in her various accounts of the incident. Swetnick changed several details of her own story and had been involved in multiple lawsuits pertaining to false harassment claims and other forms of fraud. Ramirez had admitted to former classmates she wasn’t even sure of her alleged assaulter’s identity.
Nevertheless, many on the Left ran with the allegations, which delayed but ultimately didn’t thwart Kavanaugh’s confirmation. In an April 2019 speech to the University of Baltimore’s 11th Feminist Legal Theory Conference, Ford’s attorney, Debra Katz, admitted that “part of what motivated Christine” was a desire to taint an eventual ruling Kavanaugh would join to overturn Roe v. Wade.
