The Platner Mess

 

From hopeful, to troubling, to unsupportable: 

A new sexual assault accusation against Graham Platner, the progressive oysterman who won the Democratic nomination to challenge GOP Sen. Susan Collins in Maine last month, appears to be the final straw for the scandal-plagued campaign.

Immediately after Politico on Monday reported an on-the-record testimony of Platner drunkenly entering the house of a woman he was dating and sexually assaulting her in 2021, the candidate posted a video admitting he was taking time off the campaign trail “to reflect on the best path forward.” He denied the assault allegation. 

Meanwhile, seemingly the entire Democratic Party apparatus, from left-wing media figures to center-left reformers to leaders of major parts of the party infrastructure, responded to the accusation with calls for him to exit the race, and for the Maine Democratic Party to step in and select a new nominee. Potential nominees have already begun jockeying for position.  [snip]

By 7 p.m., both the Maine Democratic Party and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had called on Platner to drop out, with the DSCC and the main super PAC for Senate Democrats saying they would not invest any more money into Maine as long as he remained the nominee.  [snip]

A source familiar with the campaign’s internal discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The New York Times that no final decision had been made about dropping out and suggested that Platner would want a replacement candidate who shared his broad ideology.

“If he was to step down it would only be with a guarantee of being replaced by a candidate who he believes is true to the values and vision and policy agenda of the campaign that Maine voted for,” the person told the paper.  [snip]

Who could the nominee be? Based on conversations with five Democratic operatives in D.C. and Maine ― all of whom requested anonymity to speak frankly about the party’s options ― there are four major names in contention at the moment: former state Senate President Troy Jackson, Maine Beer Company Founder Dan Kleban, former state Centers for Disease Control leader Nirav Shah and Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows.  [snip]

Jackson is considered the closest Democrats could get to a scandal-free version of Platner. A logger who represented a district on Maine’s border with Canada and won it repeatedly even as it voted for Collins and for President Donald Trump, said he is close with organized labor and shares Platner’s populist politics and the backing of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

While Jackson finished third in the state’s ranked-choice vote for governor, one operative suggested he would have a potential leg up because selecting him would not “reverse the progressive victory in the primary,” an important goal for party unity and for earning Platner’s buy-in to drop out of the contest...

He has to, and we believe will, drop out.  The deadline for that is July 13. We hope the Maine Democratic Party chooses a replacement well when he does.