{"id":143,"date":"2026-06-01T13:40:51","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T13:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=143"},"modified":"2026-06-01T13:40:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T13:40:51","slug":"maine-voters-its-not-too-late-to-save-democrats-from-graham-platner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=143","title":{"rendered":"Maine Voters, It\u2019s Not Too Late to Save Democrats from Graham Platner\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cTo be clear, it\u2019s the voters of Maine who thus far have chosen Graham Platner,\u201d said Kate Bedingfield, a former Biden Administration aide, on CNN yesterday. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Five Big Changes Coming to Higher Education This Summer<\/a><\/p>\n

But to be clear, Maine voters haven\u2019t chosen anybody yet. Not one vote has been counted for Platner in his entire life. While early voting has already begun, the Maine primary is on June 9. \u00a0<\/p>\n

And over the weekend, Maine voters were given plenty of reasons to deny Platner the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Platner may be the only person on the Democratic ballot running a well-financed campaign. But there are two other candidates on the ballot, each more accomplished, each who have been on a ballot before, each without Platner\u2019s still-growing row of bright red flags. And because Maine has ranked choice voting, voters can rank both of them. \u00a0<\/p>\n

No Maine voter should enter a voting booth thinking the race is over and Platner has already won just because that\u2019s what Platner\u2019s loyalists and many Republicans want you to think.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the latest Platner scandal blew up. On Sunday, Platner made it worse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As you may already know, on Saturday The Wall Street Journal<\/em> and The New York Times<\/em> reported that Platner\u2019s wife, just days after his Senate campaign officially began last August, shared sexts he sent to several women mere months earlier. The Journal <\/em>further reported that \u201cPlatner also has an active account on Kik, a popular, private messaging app. Platner\u2019s profile shows a mirror selfie of him shirtless with a towel wrapped around his waist.\u201d (He is identifiable by his body tattoos though his face is cropped out and his arm appears strategically placed where his controversial Totenkopf tattoo once was.) The conservative site The Maine Wire<\/em> the quickly published a piece emphasizing Kik\u2019s unsavory reputation as a site frequented by teenagers and, as explained in a 2016 New York Times <\/em>investigation, a hotbed for \u201cinappropriate sexual content and behavior.\u201d (Platner\u2019s Kik profile is still active and accessible online.) \u00a0<\/p>\n

Saturday evening, the Platner campaign posted a video from his wife Amy Gertner in which she assures, \u201cOur marriage today is stronger than ever before\u201d and saves her ire for the former campaign staffer Genevieve McDonald who was a source for the news stories: \u201cI confided deeply personal details about my marriage to someone I considered a friend \u2026 and I am deeply hurt by her betrayal and the invasion of our privacy.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Platner spoke to reporters with Gertner by his side. He admitted nothing and offered no apology. Asked if \u201cthe stories are true, right, about the texts,\u201d Platner responded, \u201cNo. No. This is the amazing part. The Wall Street Journal & the New York Times ran stories without any evidence besides the gossip from a former staffer. I\u2019m sorry that\u2019s frankly journalistic malpractice.\u201d In fact, while McDonald told the Times <\/em>that Platner \u201chad been exchanging sexual messages with as many as a dozen women,\u201d the outlet also cited \u201ca current Platner campaign official\u201d who \u201csaid Mr. Platner had been communicating with up to six women.\u201d When Platner was asked on Sunday, \u201cSo are you confirming that the messages did not exist?\u201d Platner replied with a dodge: \u201cI\u2019m confirming that what Genevieve McDonald said in The New York Times<\/em> is not true.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Tom Steyer\u2019s Expensive Populist Bet<\/a><\/p>\n

Platner\u2019s choice to dissemble makes the situation much worse. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Morris Katz, a Platner aide, declared on X, \u201cIt\u2019s no one\u2019s fucking business what happened in Graham & Amy\u2019s marriage before he was ever a candidate for office.\u201d That past marital indiscretions have no relevance to the job of U.S. Senator is not a wholly unreasonable argument, though we have many examples of infidelity by public officials sliding quickly into illegal behavior, be it sexual harassment or financial crimes committed to cover up their tracks. \u00a0<\/p>\n

We also have examples of philanders getting elected and re-elected so, as other Platner defenders argue, we need not assume this latest controversy means Platner can\u2019t win. Fair enough, we can\u2019t know<\/em> the latest revelations mean Platner can\u2019t win. But we also don\u2019t know<\/em> what else controversial may be lurking in Platner\u2019s past.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Platner himself has lost the credibility to reassure. In January, asked by CNN if he had \u201cother skeletons from your past,\u201d Platner said, \u201cNo.\u201d Asked by The New York Times <\/em>two weeks ago, \u201cIs there something new you want to get ahead of,\u201d Platner said, \u201cNo.\u201d Now on Sunday he can\u2019t even talk straight to reporters about sexts his campaign already admitted he sent. Trust is broken. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The damage of a Platner nomination could go beyond Maine. Already we are seeing Republicans gleefully use Platner to charge Democrats with hypocrisy. Painting the Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton\u2014the Texas Attorney General who was impeached over bribery allegations connected to the employer of his mistress\u2014as ethically compromised becomes harder if Democrats are also downplaying Platner\u2019s controversies. Charging Donald Trump\u2019s Republican Party as taking us down the road of fascism is harder when Democrats have to keep arguing Platner didn\u2019t know about the Nazi origins of his Totenkopf.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no such thing as a zero-risk candidate, but Platner\u2019s campaign has been a series of red flags warning us he is a high-risk candidate, each flag redder than the last. Why should Maine Democratic primary voters take such a risk? Yes he ran the best campaign in the winter and spring. Yes he raised the most amount of money. Yes his poll numbers have been good to date. But if more shoes drop, all that will be meaningless. \u00a0<\/p>\n

And yes, Governor Janet Mills suspended her lackluster campaign (I argued last week Mills should unsuspend her campaign but even if she doesn\u2019t she remains on the ballot), and David Costello, a career government aide, is currently running a lackluster campaign. Yes it is unlikely that either of them will best Platner on June 9. But they definitely won\u2019t if voters who would rather not vote for Platner do it anyway out of resignation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you are a Maine Democratic primary voter (both Democrats and unenrolled voters can participate in the June 9 primary) who believes either Mills or Costello would be more likely to beat Susan Collins than the guy who spewed racist and misogynist rhetoric online, blamed women for getting raped, mocked a Purple Heart recipient for getting shot on the battlefield, has a profile on a notorious messaging app and was using it to sext behind his wife\u2019s back last year, then there\u2019s no harm in ranking them number one and number two, in whatever order, on your ranked choice ballot. <\/p>\n

Of course, if you simply believe Platner is the better candidate on the merits, then double down! Matt Stoller, the populist commentator, argued on X, \u201cI like that he\u2019s messy. The rule following perfect resume ladder climbing Harvard law grads are the actually [sic] lizard people creeps.\u201d That strikes me as a wee bit of a broad brush to paint, and neither Mills nor Costello even went to Harvard anyway (unlike Stoller, albeit as an undergrad). But regardless, voters who trust Platner can and will win should stand by their man. Others, however, need not and should not feel pressured to vote for a candidate they don\u2019t trust.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Could the Tide Be Turning in Ukraine?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Weekend revelations of extramarital sexting and subsequent dissembling make nominating Graham Platner riskier than ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,6,8,2],"tags":[53],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-foreign-policy","category-higher-education","category-politics","tag-tagged-graham-platner-janet-mills-matt-stoler-morris-katz"],"yoast_head":"\nMaine Voters, It\u2019s Not Too Late to Save Democrats from Graham Platner\u00a0 - USA Business Chronicle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=143\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Maine Voters, It\u2019s Not Too Late to Save Democrats from Graham Platner\u00a0 - 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