It wasn’t a wonder, however it used to be a bombshell.
On July 6, 2026, Politico revealed the detailed account of a Maine girl who mentioned she were sexually assaulted by way of Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner virtually 5 years in the past. Platner known as the allegation “categorically untrue” however has mentioned he’s “taking the time to reflect on the best path forward.”
Platner won the fervent reinforce of progressives in Maine and out of doors. However he were dogged by way of accusations of, variously, racist, misogynist and cheating habits – he claimed to not have identified the that means of an SS tattoo on his chest. However his supporters remained in the back of him.
Quickly after the attack allegations gave the impression, the Platner marketing campaign used to be in bother. His early political champion, Sen. Bernie Sanders, took an afternoon to echo what social gathering officers and once-supportive social media stars had virtually in an instant demanded: that Platner drop out of the marketing campaign.
Politics and criminal affairs editor Naomi Schalit spoke with political scientist Nicholas Jacobs, who has adopted the marketing campaign and talked with Platner without delay in 2025.
An NPR host the day before today opened an interview with a Maine reporter by way of looking at, “A lot going on in your little state.” Maine has two senators, identical to different states. Why is that this the sort of high-profile race?
I assumed after I moved to Maine in 2019 from Virginia, I used to be going to the quiet nation-state. Politics has been anything else however since then. Maine used to be destined to be within the nationwide highlight this 12 months as a result of Republican Sen. Susan Collins is up for reelection, working for her 6th consecutive time period in place of business. Each and every time she is up for reelection, she is considered as a inclined incumbent, if now not probably the most inclined incumbent, within the Republican Birthday celebration. So we have been destined to get so much of outdoor cash and out of doors consideration ahead of the entire Platner tale even started.
Graham Platner and Sen. Bernie Sanders, left, sign up for arms at an match in Orono, Maine, on Would possibly 24, 2026.
AP Picture/Robert F. Bukaty
Prior to now, applicants most often emerged from a pipeline – electoral revel in, vetting by way of the social gathering. They didn’t emerge out of candidate recruitment by way of outsiders or social gathering critics. However nationally we’re seeing that more or less rebel recruitment, together with with Platner. Is that this a brand new more or less politics?
Political scientists were excited about that query for fairly a very long time. Way back to the early Nineteen Seventies they began excited about how adjustments to the construction of those social gathering organizations, specifically the principles governing the nomination procedure, started to provide a special form of candidate. The ones adjustments sat facet by way of facet with various kinds of applied sciences that I believe additionally larger the possibility of a candidate-centered marketing campaign.
Now, it’s good to say we’re dwelling in an anti-establishment technology, which may imply that citizens at the proper and the left are extra disposed or much more likely to choose applicants who’re working in opposition to the institution.
As bizarre as Graham Platner is, this taste of politics is increasingly commonplace. In 2010, students have been changing into attuned to one thing referred to as the “invisible primary.” That’s the place numerous endorsements amongst social gathering elites and hobby workforce activists, smartly ahead of citizens had any say in the main procedure, supposed those insiders had come to a few form of consensus on who the candidate must be.
There’s a turn facet of that, which is reflected in Donald Trump in 2016 and in a few of these revolutionary insurgencies of the previous couple of years. Would-be applicants themselves and activist organizations are ready to place ahead possible contenders for nomination out of doors of that conventional device the place you’re employed your approach up thru legislative place of business. That’s obviously what came about with Platner.
In 2025, people related to the Bernie Sanders presidential marketing campaign – now form of the Bernie Sanders system – got here as much as Maine searching for applicants. They discovered a man who did an advert in opposition to some Norwegian salmon industrial fisheries, discovered he used to be minimize immediately from central casting, and that’s how we were given Graham Platner.
Is there a connection between Platner’s populism and why his deeply engaged supporters weren’t ready to seem previous his evident issues?
Donald Trump, as a populist candidate, has been ready to let scandal after scandal simply roll off his shoulders. The left used to be very crucial of Trump supporters forgiving him, to the level that even Trump himself famously says he can stand in the midst of 5th Road, shoot any individual and other folks will nonetheless reinforce him.
There’s an equivalency with Platner, and a few of it has to do with a populist taste of politics. Platner and Trump in reality excel, as all populists do, in defining who they’re in opposition to, at figuring out the enemy, whether or not it’s immigrants, the deep state, the swamp, the oligarchy or the institution.
Each Platner and Trump have considered the nationwide media as an enemy. Each and every scandal, each and every assault, each and every complaint that’s levied on the chief of a populist motion turns out to vindicate their concept that there’s some higher power in the market looking to take them down. The sexting scandal that broke a few month in the past, it used to be the Platner marketing campaign itself that mentioned this used to be a success process, a smear from The New York Instances.
There’s a sizable mass of people within the state, together with some elected Democrats, who view this newest set of allegations of sexual attack that Politico reported as a fabricated hit process from the Democratic institution.
If the critics are the enemy, then Maine’s Democratic Birthday celebration has a major problem with regards to who will get to be the following candidate.
No longer each and every Democrat in Maine is journey or die with Platner, nor have been they when he did an excessively spectacular process in getting probably the most votes ever within the Democratic number one final month, after Gov. Janet Turbines had suspended her marketing campaign.
The Turbines marketing campaign in reality by no means mobilized. Through early spring right here in Maine, when Turbines attempted to combat again, she ran one set of commercials calling out some submit that Platner had written diminishing sexual attack, specifically within the army. The left within the state attacked her lovely strongly, pronouncing, “You’re going to weaken our candidate. This isn’t right.”
The truth that numerous the ladies who have been featured within the advert have been Democratic Birthday celebration stalwarts more or less performed into this concept that it used to be the institution taking at the insurgency. A number of months later, it sort of feels they could have had some degree.
Are there classes from what came about with Platner?
The straightforward, shallow lesson is that this used to be simply dangerous marketing campaign technique.
Other folks got here in and recruited Platner and simply didn’t do sufficient opposition analysis. So the following time that they arrive in and pull someone out of central casting, they only would wish to rent higher attorneys to dig up dust on their very own candidate.
However what’s problematic about that is one thing else.
I sat down with Platner in October 2025. I requested him, “Neatly, why are you dressed in the Scarlet D – for Democrat – round your neck? Why would you do this?
And he mentioned, “The one explanation why I’m doing it’s to get get admission to to Act Blue, so I will carry cash.” Act Blue is the Democratic Birthday celebration’s major fundraising platform.
Editor’s observe: The Dialog has reached out to the Platner marketing campaign for a remark and can replace this tale if it receives one.
So you’ve got this person who doesn’t wish to be a Democrat. He’s overtly mentioned he’s now not going to vote for the Democratic management. He’s an acolyte of Bernie Sanders, who additionally doesn’t wish to name himself a Democrat. What are such people ready to do? They’re ready to take over the Democratic Birthday celebration.
This is similar form of drawback that we noticed in 2016: A person who by no means in reality sought after to be a Republican, who used to be a Democrat for a lot of his lifestyles, bursts out at the scene and finally ends up taking up the Republican Birthday celebration.
So the deeper, longer-term drawback is the hollowness of The us’s arranged political social gathering lifestyles. I am getting that there are only a few defenders of our two-party device, however our politics, our political device, our Charter handiest paintings with two wholesome, tough political events.
When they may be able to be hijacked by way of outsiders, events aren’t ready to do the paintings of settling on applicants, of creating consensus, of doing the paintings of democratic persuasion. Chances are you’ll say it turns into a completely other political sport altogether.
