Inside the Downfall of the Graham Platner Campaign | Vanity Fair

Late last week, the rumors reached a fever pitch. Graham Platner, the Marine Corps veteran and oysterman who mounted a quixotic bid for the US Senate in Maine, was used to controversy—headlines had been bad enough already, and his campaign aides spent much of their time dealing with lurid rumors. That there was a sex tape on the verge of leaking. That notes from his therapist were floating around. One adviser tells Vanity Fair that the relentless onslaught of speculation was “disorienting.”

On Friday, as fresh rumors of serious misconduct began to swirl, Morris Katz, one of Platner’s top strategists, took the first step toward ending the turbulent campaign. Fearing the worst, he contacted several pollsters to commission surveys for alternative candidates. Platner’s advisers, meanwhile, questioned the candidate directly on what they were hearing. “We continued to ask Graham for the billionth time in this race if there was any information he had not shared,” says one. “He continued to say no.”

Early Sunday afternoon, Politico reached out to the campaign for comment: A woman had told the outlet that in 2021, Platner had drunkenly raped her. (Platner has continued to deny the allegation.) Immediately, some on the campaign began planning an exit. “The team had reached a consensus that if the inquiry was what the rumors were saying it was going to be, there was not a path forward,” says the adviser. Another source familiar with internal deliberations told me earlier this week: “It’s not a matter of if he drops out, it’s a matter of when.”

Platner wasn’t easily convinced, according to sources, and fought to stay in the race. As his staff confronted him, he responded with anger to suggestions that he drop out. “Graham was deeply reluctant to step down and felt like it was a political witch hunt,” says the adviser. “He maintained his innocence aggressively behind closed doors.” The Platner campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

On Monday, soon after the Politico story was published, Platner denied the allegation in a video statement but did not say he would withdraw from the race. Yet the national support he built quickly evaporated as a wave of prominent Democrats withdrew their endorsements and called for the end of his campaign. Representative Ro Khanna, a prominent Platner backer who was on a trip through the Middle East when the story broke, withdrew his endorsement in a post on X. Senator Bernie Sanders said he had called the candidate and urged him to drop out.

The slow-burn collapse of the Platner campaign ignited a battle between the outsider progressive and the party apparatus he so often railed against on the campaign trail. It started to look more like a hostage situation after a Platner campaign staffer told reporters that the candidate expected to have a say in the selection of his successor. A tight timeline added fuel to the fire: In order for Democrats to replace Platner with another candidate on the ballot, he had to exit the race before a Monday deadline.

On Tuesday night, the Maine Democratic Party publicly accused the campaign of meddling in the succession process. “Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like,” party executive director Devon Murphy-Anderson said in a video. “We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the US Senate.”

Platner’s campaign disputes any meddling. A spokesperson told NBC News that the campaign did reach out to the Maine Democrats, but only to ensure that “the voters and volunteers make this decision—not the political establishment.”

The allegation reported by Politico came from Maine resident Jenny Racicot, 41, who dated Platner on and off for a few years and claimed that in late 2021 he raped her. She provided communications with her therapist, as well as ones with an acquaintance, in which she discussed a bad experience with Platner. An ex-boyfriend also told Politico that in 2023, before Platner’s run for Senate, Racicot confided in him about the alleged sexual assault.

The new allegation delivered a blow to an already battered campaign. From nearly the start of his run, Platner faced bruising headlines about his past. There were the colorful posts on Reddit and the apparent Nazi tattoo he sported on his chest, things one suspects would have ended the campaign of a political candidate of a past time.

In June, several of Platner’s ex-girlfriends alleged in a report from The New York Times a history of “unsettling” interactions, including one case involving “physically threatening” behavior. At the time, in an appearance on MS NOW, Platner denied “anything alleging physicality.”

The day after Racicot’s allegation was made public this week, The Washington Post published an interview with Lyndsey Fifield, one of the women who previously told the Times that she’d had bad experiences while dating Platner. She leveled a new allegation: that Platner removed condoms during sexual encounters without asking for her consent.

Platner previously denied Fifield’s allegations of physical misconduct and accused her of being politically motivated (Fifield has worked for Republican campaigns). In a statement to the Post, Platner’s campaign called the allegations “categorically false and politically motivated.”

Throughout the week, Platner’s supporters struggled to reckon with the collapse of the campaign. “I do regret my support for Graham,” one prominent ally tells VF. “We thought he would change the structures of power that are used to hurt people, and it’s very disappointing when that someone uses their power to hurt people. That’s what makes this so difficult for everyone.”

As his support vanished and his campaign clashed with the state Democratic Party, Platner hunkered down with a team of advisers at his home in Sullivan, a small town on the coast of Maine. Reporters staked out the property and snapped pictures of arrivals. Ben Chin, his young campaign manager, was spotted entering with two messenger bags. Katz, the 27-year-old political operative who rose to prominence after helping to propel Zohran Mamdani to Gracie Mansion, boarded a flight from Newark to Bangor on Tuesday afternoon before taking a car to Platner’s Sullivan home.

There, over the course of many heated conversations, Platner’s advisers pushed for him to accept reality: The campaign was over. He needed to drop out. Platner responded angrily, furiously denying the claims and casting the pressure as a “political witch hunt.” Eventually, the advisers convinced Platner that he had no other choice. They urged him to take a “conciliatory tone” in his announcement video, a suggestion Platner refused. True to form, he conditioned his exit from the race on being able to rage against “the establishment” one last time.

On Wednesday afternoon, he walked out onto the porch of his home in Sullivan and recorded a fiery 11-minute video denying the allegations, assailing his political opponents, and casting the collapse of his campaign as the consequence of partisan sabotage. “The corporate media system and the political establishment got to act as judge, jury, and executioner,” he said. “We live in a political system that is not built for normal people.”

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