Platner hinted that a decision could be made as early as Wednesday afternoon, July 8, and that he would reevaluate the campaign.
Graham Platner withdraws candidacy for Maine Senate following sexual assault allegations
Graham Platner has withdrawn from the high-profile Maine Senate race after facing numerous controversies, including sexual assault allegations.
Democrats are vying for a reset button in the pivotal U.S. Senate runoffs in Maine. There, progressive Graham Platner is once again embroiled in controversy this fall as he seeks to unseat Republican incumbent Susan Collins.
The 41-year-old oyster farmer and retired Marine is facing a chorus of calls from Democrats to withdraw from the race following new allegations that he sexually assaulted his ex-girlfriend about five years ago. Plattner denied the accusations and said any claims of “non-consensual conduct” were “categorically false.”
But he hinted that a decision could be made as early as the afternoon of Wednesday, July 8, and that he might reevaluate the campaign.
Still, the criticism continues among Democrats, who are scrambling to find a new candidate to replace him before business ends on July 13.
Experts and operatives say the urgency of Maine Democrats and others reflects the political reality of how difficult it will be for the party to retake the Senate this year. Many of those who spoke to USA TODAY said this quest will become nearly impossible if the Pine Tree State remains in Republican hands.
“When Democrats were looking at red seats they could flip, this Maine Senate seat was at the top of their list,” said Kate DeGruyter, a spokeswoman for Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank.
“It’s an absolute priority for Democrats to get candidates who can win there,” she added. “This is a big problem for Democrats because there has long been evidence that Mr. Platner has massive debts and character flaws that would be weaponized to make it impossible for him to flip the Senate.”
‘Long train wreck’ could spell doom for Senate Democrats in 2026
Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, meaning Democrats would have to flip at least four seats to take control, given Republican Vice President J.D. Vance holds the tie-breaking vote.
In an interview with USA TODAY earlier this year, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) made it clear that Maine, along with Alaska, Ohio and North Carolina, is an important patch in completing the midterm quilt.
“We have to keep the Democratic states, which we’re doing well, and we have to win the four swing states,” Schumer said in a one-on-one interview with USA TODAY in January. “I believe we will beat Maine.”
Collins, a more centrist Republican, is a five-term incumbent who has survived predicted “blue wave” elections in the past. In 2020, he defeated Schumer’s handpicked candidate, Maine House Speaker Sarah Gideon, by about 8 percentage points. That same year, President Donald Trump lost the state by about 7 percentage points.
Despite Collins’ formidable reputation, Democrats note that he is the only Senate Republican incumbent running for re-election in a state that was run by former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
Maine is considered by political forecasters to be a competitive race within reach for Democrats, but that could change quickly if the scandal-plagued Mr. Platner remains in the race. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report, for example, said it would change its prediction from “bullish” to “lean” Republican if he stays beyond next week’s deadline.
David McCune, a political science professor at California’s Sonoma State University, said there will be more pressure on the other three states identified as mandatory flips, including North Carolina, which Trump won by about 3 percentage points.
Polls show former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has a wide lead over former Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Whatley in the Tar Heel State. However, if the forecast for Maine changes, it will not only make a Democratic victory essential, but also focus attention on highly contested conservative-leaning states such as Iowa and Texas, which Mr. Trump easily won.
“This series of events and this long train wreck could have put the Senate out of reach for Democrats this term,” McEwan said. “It’s consequential.”
J. Miles Coleman is the associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan election newsletter at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, which also rates the Maine race as “unexpected.”
He said it was “very surprising” when opinion polls showed Mr. Platner winning by a narrow margin before the scandal broke.
“Maine was a must-win state for Democrats, so Platner probably could have gotten the job done,” Coleman said, but Platner now has even more responsibility. “I think right now they probably think it’s more of a risk than it needs to be.”
The Democratic Party’s unresolved battle over whether to go center or left and how far to go
Animosity between the party’s establishment and its progressive base had been brewing for months before the Platner controversy tore apart the Maine election.
Mr. Schumer’s 2026 recruiting class chose Maine Gov. Janet Mills over Mr. Platner, a political newcomer backed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and a group of progressive groups and lawmakers.
The primary was one of the loudest examples of the party’s ongoing divisions, marked by growing dissatisfaction among its supporters with Democratic leadership, especially in Washington. In multiple elections since President Trump returned to power, that discontent has fueled the rise of several young, progressive candidates and nominees aligned with democratic socialists.
“Basically, the Democratic Party is still unresolved about the future of the party and where it’s going because of the hangover from losing the presidential election in November 2024,” McEwan said. “As a result, there are unresolved family conflicts with voters about how far left, how centrist, and when.”
The most likely of these bolder candidates was Mr. Platner, whose plain working-class image, support for policy prescriptions such as Medicare for All, and pledge to oppose Mr. Schumer’s continued leadership were highlighted by support from progressive groups.
Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), which until recently supported Mr. Platner, described the Senate Democratic leader in a January statement to USA TODAY as “a monster of a system that voters despise.” He added that Schumer “didn’t have the ability to recognize the establishment-shaking candidates” voters wanted to elect.
A flood of blues in the party wiped out moderate Democrat Mills from the race before the first ballots were cast in April, and now she and other centrist figures like her are blaming progressives for not listening to Plattner’s issues.
As early as October 2025, reports began surfacing about the political newcomer’s controversial posts on Reddit forums, followed by reports about his tattoos, which are widely regarded as Nazi symbols.
Those concerns were heightened in May when the Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Platner’s wife had told a campaign aide that he had sent sexually explicit texts to several women early in their marriage. A month later, the New York Times reported that three of Mr. Platner’s ex-girlfriends alleged that he engaged in “toxic” or erratic behavior during their relationship.
“Going back to the early days of this campaign, the scrutiny we expect to ensure we select candidates who meet the public’s expectations not just in policy and experience but also in character and leadership was an essential part of preparing us for the right talent and leadership for this moment, and this was a catastrophic failure on the left,” said DeGruyter of the centrist Democratic Party think tank.
Will Democrats choose transparency at a pivotal moment?
Before the latest scandal subsided, a New York Times/Siena poll released on June 29 showed that several controversies were beginning to erode Mr. Platner’s base.
The survey found that about 28% of his supporters acknowledged that they were “unsupportable” of his Senate campaign because of these scandals. Another 24% said they doubted whether they could support him.
Mr. Platner may not be as motivated, Mr. Coleman said, despite the national and state Democratic Party’s strong and sustained calls for Mr. Platner to resign.
Because Maine is a state that “likes to do its own thing,” Coleman said Platner could still try to take advantage of voters’ unpredictability. Mr. Coleman cast Mr. Platner’s opponent, Mr. Collins, as a resilient Republican who doesn’t always toe the party line and is more mindful of his district in his decision-making.
Coleman said the tide of the general election could also change if Plattner resigns and Democrats field a new Senate candidate who would override their progressive base. As the clock continues to tick toward a pivotal moment for Mr. Plattner’s candidacy, former progressive allies and the state Democratic Party are battling over a possible nomination process to replace him.
In a July 7 video posted to social media, state Democratic Party executive director Devon Murphy Anderson accused Platner’s campaign of trying to “thumb it up” when choosing a new candidate.
“We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining the U.S. Senate nominees or determining what this process looks like,” she said.
Platner’s campaign said in a statement that it had reached out to the state party to “try to understand what this process will look like,” but denied he was trying to influence the outcome. Former allies have also pushed back against the parties’ claims, saying they are creating more problems as they consider a range of options, from caucuses to special conventions.
In an interview with CBS this week, PCCC’s Greene said “everyone wants” Platner to drop out of the race, but he criticized the state party’s “incompetence and arrogance” for starting a “secret candidate selection program” that is on hold until the current candidate drops out.
“There are a lot of guys who can beat Susan Collins,” Green said. “First and foremost, there should be a fair process that the entire Maine Democratic Party deems legitimate so that there is full support for the final nominee, not a creeping sense that someone was chosen by Democratic Party insiders.”
Given Mr. Platner’s campaign history, experts believe the controversy will subside in the coming weeks, giving him a small chance of remaining in the race.
“This is one of the real challenges. He’s a Democratic candidate who received over 70% of the primary vote, and at the time the vote was taken, he didn’t have much of an opponent,” Coleman said. “The ball is still completely in his court until he decides it’s not in his court.”
