Platner ‘taking the time to reflect on the best path forward’ in Maine Senate race after assault allegation

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Maine Senate Democratic candidate Graham Platner on Monday said his campaign is “taking the time to reflect on the best path forward,” just minutes after Politico published a story in which a woman who previously dated the oyster farmer alleged he had sexually assaulted her.

“I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious and false allegations against me. Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically false,” Platner said in the two-minute video posted online.

Politico earlier on Monday reported that a woman Platner previously dated, Jenny Racicot, told the news outlet that Platner had forced her to have sex with him while he was intoxicated in 2021.

Platner vehemently denied accusations of sexual assault to Politico in his video.

The Hill has not independently verified the accusations. The Platner campaign did not respond to The Hill’s request for comment regarding the Politico story.

Platner in his video emphasized the “inaccuracy of the reporting” while acknowledging that the latest scandal could threaten to rock his campaign, adding that “we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”

The response from some progressives was swift.

End Citizens United pulled its endorsement of Platner, with its president, Tiffany Muller, urging him to drop out of the race and calling the allegations “profoundly disturbing and disqualifying.”

“That is curtains,” said socialist internet personality Hasan Piker, reacting to the news.

Racicot told Politico that Platner entered her home in late 2021 one night after she had previously indicated by text message that she didn’t want any company over. Talking to the outlet in three different interviews, Racicot alleged that Platner had raped her in her bedroom and that when she spoke to him the next day about the incident, he said he was not aware of what had happened the previous night.

“These allegations are very serious and Graham vigorously denies them,” his campaign told Politico in a statement.

“It is not a coincidence that this story comes a week before the ballot deadline, just as the previous false allegations came a week before the primary,” the campaign added, referring to the date in which Platner can drop out and the state party can nominate a new candidate. “Graham began this campaign to fight for a Maine where everyone is treated with dignity and where Mainers are put first, and no amount of desperate smears will stop this movement from seeing that vision through.”

Racicot told Politico she wanted to go public with her allegations because a separate story she was quoted in by The New York Times about Platner’s past relationships with women “was just a read-over,” noting that another woman’s accusations became the focal point of reactions to that story. Racicot did not make sexual assault allegations in that article.

“One of the reasons I didn’t come forward sooner was, the huge moral conflict that I had between supporting his politics, but not supporting him as a person,” Racicot added to Politico. “I just want the truth out there. I just want people to have a whole scope of who he is as a person.”

The populist oyster farmer — who easily won the Democratic contest to take on Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) last month after Gov. Janet Mills (D) suspended her Senate campaign — has grappled with a string of negative headlines and scandals since he launched his campaign.

Those included revelations that a tattoo on Platner’s chest resembled a Nazi symbol, since-deleted social media posts where he downplayed sexual assault and criticized law enforcement and, more recently, the Times story, in which several women who previously dated Platner alleged physical roughness and abusive behavior.

Platner has said that he didn’t realize his tattoo was a Nazi symbol and covered it up during his campaign, and has apologized for his past posts, saying he wrote many of them during a difficult period in his life after returning from several military tours.

He told MS NOW in June that the allegations in the Times’ story of physical roughness with a former partner and previously knowing the tattoo was a Nazi symbol were false.

“There are some allegations in this piece that, I just want to be kind of unequivocal about, are simply not true. Anything alleging physicality, anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was. These are the statements of someone who is politically motivated,” Platner told MS NOW.

While many of those controversies didn’t stop Platner from easily sailing in the Democratic primary — even forcing Mills to suspend her campaign in April — the newest revelations could seriously imperil Democrats’ hopes of flipping the Senate seat in Maine.

If Platner were to exit the race by the state deadline of July 13, Democrats would have two weeks to name a replacement.

Updated: 5:03 p.m. EDT

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