The NPR Politics Podcast - What’s next after Democrat Platner exits Maine Senate race?

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

Democrat Graham Platner has announced that he is dropping out of the race to represent Maine in the U.S. Senate, following new allegations — which Platner denies — that he raped a woman he once dated. We discuss how the Democratic Party ended up with such a controversial nominee and what comes next in the race for this Senate seat that the party desperately hopes to flip.This episode: senior political correspondent Tamara Keith, political reporter Elena Moore, and Maine Public chief politics and government correspondent Steve Mistler.This podcast was produced by Bria Suggs and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

It doesn't get much more dramatic than this. Graham Platner is out. The man who just one month ago, Maine Democrats, chooses their nominee in the state's high-stakes U.S. Senate race was forced to leave that race after a woman he once dated accused him of rape. He denies it, but the political fallout

was immediate and intense, and it's probably not over. So let's dig in. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. And I'm Elena Moore. I also cover politics. And Maine public, Steve Missler, also joins us today. Hi, Steve. Hello, hello. Hello, hello indeed. So why don't you just start by walking us through what has happened in the past week that has gotten us to where we are right now? Yeah, where to begin. I mean, the last week has been just incredible just because you've seen this rocket-like rise by Graham Platner come crashing down in the last two and a half days. And all of that, that stems from a Politico story that broke on Monday afternoon

where there was a woman that Platner used to date who essentially accused him of rape and sexual assault. And that's the publication of that story basically led to just absolute cratering of support. People who had endorsed Grant Platner, immediately rescinded their endorsements. In some cases, they had actually sought his endorsements. I'm talking about state-led state Democrats, specifically gubernatorial candidates. They had sought his endorsement because he was, you know, he was the shiny thing and he had this movement behind him.

And even those folks failed on him as well. And so perhaps most significantly, he lost his biggest backer on Tuesday, which was Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the independent who had endorsed him right out of the gate last August when he declared his candidacy. And so that was really the signal that this was the beginning of the end for Grant Platner. Yeah. And it was so dramatic because this story breaks Monday. We see this real wave of endorsements rescinded from everyone from the, you know,

leaders of the Democratic Party to, like Steve said, you know, biggest progressive names in politics. But we didn't hear from Platner after Monday. On Monday, he came out and made a statement said he was going to. to take time to assess the path forward and he denied the allegation. And then we didn't hear from the campaign until Wednesday evening when Plattner put out this more than 11 minute long video where he was really visibly emotional and angry and eventually around seven minutes in announced he was suspending his campaign.

This is incredibly difficult because I know that some will think it's an admission of guilt and it most certainly is not. We're not doing it because of the allegations. We're doing it because of the structures that are being taken away from us by those in power. And Elena, explain what he means by that. Well, that's been his message like this whole campaign, which is, you know, a rejection of democratic norms, of establishment politics. He wanted to be a change candidate. And that was really laced throughout his entire policy platform, whether it was about, you know, affordability or wealth inequality. It always got back. to the blame would fall on this system has been broken and it's affecting you.

The Democratic establishment pulled the rug out from under him. And that means he didn't, he wasn't going to have access to the voter file. He wasn't going to have the money that he would need to run a campaign. The donor network was drying up. It was over. It was, it was very over whether he wanted to be done or not. Right. Steve, though, to be clear, there have been a lot of red flags before this late. accusation. There were the old Reddit post where he was dismissive of victims of sexual assault, among other things. The Nazi tattoo, which he said was not actually a Nazi tattoo or he didn't know it was, but then he had it covered up, sexting with women outside of his marriage. I mean, it was just like one thing after another, after another after another after another. Absolutely right. I mean, I think what's interesting is that, you know, with the Nazi tattoo and even some of the Reddit posts, those initially surfaced in October of last year.

And there was a lot of speculation that that was going to be the end of this campaign, this nascent campaign. And it just didn't turn out to be true. And I think part of the reason why is that he was able to sort of craft this redemption story. He is a combat veteran, served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. You know, he's also disabled as a result of that service. And so he immediately went out and resumed this very prolific town hall circuit, which really became the staple of his campaign. And he would go out and talk about his experience as a combat veteran, how he suffered from PTSD and had all this, had gone to therapy and was very open about that. And I think in talking about it that way, he helped create a redemption story that a lot of voters in Maine were sympathetic.

to and it also helped sort of inoculate him from some of the other subsequent scandals or allegations that came out. I think the turning point, though, was the sexting story with women outside of his marriage, which came right before the June primary, which was on June 9th. And I think that story landed a little bit different. And that's because it came when he was supposedly redeemed, right? It was just a couple of years ago. And so I think that changed a lot of people. And I noticed at that moment there was a lot of platinum defenders, people maybe who were reluctant to back him, but they were sort of swooped in by his message. But at that point, you know, Maine has a lot of early voting and a lot of early voting had already occurred. And so I think that that was

one of the reasons why he won so resoundingly on June 9th. It was because so many people had voted. And he ended up getting, you know, more votes than any Democratic senatorial candidate in state history by a significant mark. margin. But, you know, just a couple of weeks later, you know, as we said, it's all come crashing down. And I think we should pause here and just explain why we are so focused on Maine. It is one of very few potential pickup opportunities for Democrats who are hoping to gain control of the Senate. And Democrats have had their eyes on Susan Collins, the Republican senator from Maine, for a very long time.

Yeah, I mean, she's a 30-year incumbent. She's survived multiple presidential administrations, multiple, you know, Republican-led, Democratic-led Congresses. And I think in a year where the theme of this midterms for at least a lot of Democrats is change. And out with like long-time party practices, I think people see Collins as part of that. And so, yeah, we can't really overstate how important Democrats. is they need to net a total of four seats in order to flip the Senate. That's no easy task even with Maine, to be clear. But this was a seat that they saw as more getable than some of the other ones on that list. And so I think that this shakeup in the candidate is a big warning sign as Democrats try to look at their path back to the majority. So I guess the question I have, here is if this race was so incredibly important to Democrats, how did they end up with a nominee who was clearly flawed? Yeah. Well, I mean, part of it is I think he just broke a lot of protocols. And I think people liked that. He was honest about the fact that he was flawed. You know, he said throughout most of, as Steve said, a lot of those earlier scandals, he'd say, yeah, I've made mistakes. Like, and I think that was a striking thing. And of course, as we've talked about, there became a limit there. but that broader idea here that he was trying to be transparent and he was trying to not follow a political script and just offered a very different type of candidate at a time when we know parts of the Democratic Party have been calling out for something like that.

These are the same groups that are key to the Democratic winning coalition who have been energized by figures like Platterner, by people who are talking about this, you know, unapologetic progressivism and economic populism. and calling out the fact that things have not been working in the party. And so I think one of the big reasons that Plattner was successful is because he embodies a lot of that feeling right now for a lot of people. Steve, he dominated the Democratic primary. I mean, I guess I sort of have the same question for you. How is it that there was this deeply flawed candidate and Democrats didn't field anyone who could compete with him? I think there's also a timing issue here. And it centers around when Platner got into the race

and when Governor Janet Mills got into the race. Now, Governor Janet Mills was a top recruit for minority leader Chuck Schumer. And, you know, he had been courting her to run for this seat, saw her as the ideal candidate to take on Collins because Mills had won two statewide elections, was a relatively popular governor. Also, she had had this, like, high-profile confrontation at the White House with Trump, which is really important because Democratic voters want people who are going to stand up to Trump.

But the problem is that the governor did not get into the race until closer to two months after Graham Platner did. And by the time she'd had, he had already built up this head of momentum. That was very difficult for her to stop. And also I think she had some fundamental disadvantages to one being her age. She's 78. that was a key concern, especially after, you know, in 2024, there was a lot of criticism of Joe Biden seeking a second term. And the fact that she had been chosen by Schumer in some ways, that's also a key piece here. So she was seen as sort of this establishment pick, which, of course, Platner was railing against from day one.

He was railing against the establishment, its recruitment of candidates, and even the policies that pursued. So she was running a more old school campaign, whereas Plattner was just doing all these town halls. He was active on social media. He was doing all kinds of events that were unorthodox for candidates. You know, he was crowd surfing at a dropkick Murphy's concert in Portland, everything else. And so I think Mills just couldn't gather any support, which is ultimately which forced her out of the race. She basically quit the race in late April because she, uh, she, just couldn't get donors to pay her staff. And also, I think she was just having a hard time

landing a knockout blow against Platner, even though she was campaigning using ads that attacked him for old Reddit posts and some of the comments that he had made there. It just didn't work. Yeah, he was a compelling candidate. He had a compelling message. And I think that a lot of progressives, especially who were excited by him, but are also repulsed by the allegations of this week have been grappling with how the, you know, leftist movement, progressive movement can build a movement without being so wedded to one leader. And that's something I talked about with Cheyenne Hunt. She leads the group Reckoning Action, which worked with Plattner's accuser that spoke with Politico to get her story out. And she argued to me that no high-stakes election, even flipping Maine,

is worth asking voters to, you know, vote for a candidate that has a fraught history. with women, even if that candidate has a message that people support. The desire to stand by a man because he is being made the movement is deeply flawed, and it seems to be something that we only understand in retrospect. This is the price that we pay over and over again when we do that. We need to be able to separate the leaders from the movement. So I think the big takeaway here is that there are flaws kind of across the, the Democratic spectrum and how they think about putting forward a winning candidate and a winning

message. And Maine is just an example of how messy that can be in finding the right one. All right. We are going to take a quick break. And then we are going to talk about what Maine Democrats do now. And we're back. And now that Graham Platner says that he is suspending his campaign, the Maine Democratic Party has to figure out how to pick a replacement for him on the ballot pretty quickly, Steve, tell us about the timeline and the process. Well, it's a tight timeline. It's very, very tight. So basically, one of the reasons why this is all happening now and why there's a lot of pressure on Platner to get out is that he needed to get out of the race by July 13th at 5 p.m. in order for Democrats to replace him on the ballot. And so that's why you saw the timing of the

announcement. That's why it was so significant. But even once he submits that withdrawal paperwork, Democrats only have until July 27th to select a new nominee. So you have basically a two-week window to find a process because it's entirely in the hands of the main Democratic Party. That's the way Maine law is structured. It just basically leaves this in the hands of the political parties. And so we're kind of an uncharted territory here, especially with a race of this profile. And so what they're talking about doing now is holding a – basically a convention with 500, 600 people making this decision. And that's very striking when you

think about the fact that more than 200,000 voters showed up on primary day. And now you have five to 600 people making the decision about how to replace that very candidate. So that's very much top of mind for people. And so is the comparisons to the Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, switcheroo from 2024. I've heard a lot of voters talk about that and how this feels like that moment. But it's desperate. It's desperation time. And so they seem, you know, the parties really got to pull this together. And I think the most important thing is that they do it transparently because that's what a lot of people are worried about. They're worried about party bosses picking this new nominee in secret. The convention is not the best way to do that perhaps. You know, it's not a caucus or another primary,

but they just don't have the time to do those other two things. Yeah, Elena, the lesson I took away from 2024, well, one of many, was that people don't like being told who they have to vote for. Voters like to feel like they have some license. Yeah. And so, yeah, I really feel like we are having a lot of 2024 flashbacks at this moment. Especially given Plotner ran so much as a candidate rejecting things like Part. party picking candidates, that it definitely is bad, you know, optics in that regard. I think the main Democratic Party has made some public statements saying they're seeking to be as transparent as possible. And I know that there's, you know, several main Democrats who are eyeing runs. So I think

we have to wait and see how the actual slate of candidates shakes out. But it's definitely ironic that two years later we are once again dealing with a July dropout. What's next conversation and also just so many conventions. Why so many conventions? I'm not ready for more conventions. Yeah, Steve, I know that certainly progressive groups are agitating for this to be as transparent as possible, for it not just to be sort of like party cronies in that room, but for it to be people that truly do represent the voice of the voter. but I don't know how you replicate that. Yeah, I just don't think you can. You know what I mean? It's like the numbers aren't there to replicate it.

And they don't have the time to bring the numbers out. Like if they had maybe a month, they might be able to organize a statewide caucus or something like that. But, you know, they just don't have the time to do that. The other factor I would like to bring up, though, is that Maine has semi-open primaries. And that means that unenrolled or independent voters were able to cast ballots.

and a lot of them did. A lot of them that came out to support Platner. Those folks are not going to be a, you know, they're not going to have any say in this replacement process, which I think is going to irk a fair share of them. And also, you know, not to mention the Democrats, you know, just rank and file, regular voters who won't be a part of the process either.

I mean, it's a good point because we know that a growing share of the American electorate is not identifying with either Maine party. They're identifying as independent. And in Maine, that slice of the electorate, is significant. It's about a third, right? And it's in a lot of elections, especially general elections, it's, you know, winning over those folks is decisive. I mean, that's one of the reasons why Susan Collins has been able to win. She's been able to win, you know, centrist-leaning Democrats, swing voters, and just straight up independence. And so that's the challenge going forward is that, you know,

can Democrats still bring out those independent voters who did turn out for Graham Platner? Steve, as quickly as possible, sort of introduce us to the names we might be hearing in the next week or two. Sure. I think the list that we have so far, these folks should be familiar to main voters because a lot of them ran in the Democratic primary for other offices. Troy Jackson is a former gubernatorial candidate, and he was also the main Senate president. He's aligned with the progressive wing of the party. He actually campaigned with the Platner several times. He's been endorsed by Bernie Sanders. Troy Jackson's also a former logger, so he has the, those working class blue collar credentials that Grant Platner was touting.

He's the choice, I think, for a lot of progressive voters. Nirov Shah's, the state's former CDC director, he almost won the gubernatorial race. He was leading on election day, but he ended up coming in second because of the ranked choice voting runoff. Shenne Bellows, who's our secretary of state, also a gubernatorial candidate,

came in fourth in said runoff. She's also expressed interest. Page Loud was running in the second, congressional district race and lost that race in her runoff and then jordan wood this is interesting he's a former um staffer for katie porter in california in lives in maine what he actually ran for the u.s senate race before governor janet mills got into the race and immediately withdrew after she got in and then joined the second congressional district race lost that and now is expressing interest in running for the the U.S. Senate. The last name I'll mention here is Dan Cleben. He owns main beer company

and is somewhat of an ally of Governor Janet Mills. And he's also expressed interest in running, too. That's the, that's a short list. It may grow. That sounded like a long list. Yeah, that's not a short list. Jeez. So that's the field, the, the large field. I think to close out, this has been quite a situation for Democrats in a race that is absolutely critical to them. Do either of you have any sense of how they recover from this? I think that this controversy has exposed the question that was already pretty obvious to most Democrats, which is how do you bring more people into the party and how do you bring in the people you've lost. And those are two different fights. They're both kind of playing out right now.

And I think both of them kind of played out in Maine. And so we're just going to keep watching to see what kind of candidate is able, if they are able to keep Plotner's movement, but maybe with some less baggage. You know, Plotteners, he was able to, you know, draw a lot of energy, channel a lot of energy, anti-establishment energy, anti-Trump energy. I think the challenge for his replacement is to find a way to channel that themselves. I think that's a tall task because, you know, there's going to be a lot of people who are reticent now to support maybe a risky candidate, you know, like Grand Platner or, you know, a progressive firebrand, for example, or something like that, just because of the experience they just went through with Grand Platner. And so it's very difficult,

I think, for Democrats, I think they're all very anxious about it. But the next, national fundamentals do favor them. And so there is an opportunity there. It's just if this replacement candidate can harness that energy and take advantage of the fundamentals that do seem to be benefiting Democrats in Maine and nationally. While also restoring trust. We are going to leave it there for now, but we will be following this very closely. Steve, thank you so much for joining us and bringing your reporting.

My pleasure, and thanks for having me. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. And I'm Elena Moore. I also cover politics. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.