A woman who previously dated Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner said he drunkenly forced her to have sex after she told him to stop, according to a Politico report released Monday, leading prominent supporters to pull their endorsements and throwing a must-win race for the party into turmoil.
Platner denied the allegation, but said he would be considering next steps for his campaign.
“Regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting but mindful of the political reality it will inflict, we’re taking the time to reflect on the best path forward,” he said in a video released on social media.
Jenny Racicot, who lives in Maine, told Politico that Platner entered her home in 2021 while drunk and assaulted her. Racicot said she had been in an on-and-off relationship with Platner, but she cut off contact with him after that night and told him the incident wasn’t consensual. A voicemail left at a number listed for Racicot seeking comment did not receive an immediate response.
Platner’s campaign did not immediately respond to an email and phone message from The Associated Press seeking comment.
“Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically false,” Platner said in his video.
Still, the allegation sparked a flight away from a candidate who has long been controversial. Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who’d stood by Platner even as the insurgent candidate was hit with prior allegations, said Monday’s was enough. “I’ve been very clear that sexual assault or violence against women is a red line,” Khanna said. “These allegations are very serious and credible. Graham Platner should drop out from the race. I am withdrawing my endorsement.”
Edit: holy shit, these comments are insane.
Regardless of what you believe with this, Platner likely cannot win anymore. He has a week to do the right thing and drop out before he's fully locked in. If he actually gives any sort of a shit (and doesn't just want power, like rapists seeking office tend to), he needs to drop out yesterday.
This is the nail in the coffin for his campaign. It's not time to defend him no matter what, because there's still a week where a new candidate can be put into place. Instead of being mad at people not wanting to vote for him, you should start vocally supporting another candidate.
Than we lose. Our opponent does not have these kinds of misgivings and has the ability to leverage more moves than we do in this game because of it.
If you supported him up to this point you're literally saying "yeah, the brutal pogrom of violence against untold civilians which almost certainly included assault on women and children was one thing, but did you know he may have sexually assaulted a white woman?"
Explain to me how you were cool with being a blackwater merc but not this?
I doubt you'd understand, but I full recognize that the military industrial complex is designed to prey on underprivileged youths or those with misplaced patriotism to joining. From their you are isolated and indoctrinated. Moving past that indoctrination and regretting what you did, as he's stated, shows growth and character development.
Rape is just rape. Not indoctrination or anything like that. Completely of his own volition. Speaks volumes
If you told he raped someone during his military or mercenary time I'd feel the same way
The fact that I even have to say that is mind boggling. This nation is beyond fucked
Go through my history. 9 years in the navy. I know how it works. He chose multiple tours and then PMC work after that. And you know what? I bet he was real good at killing.
Your making the claim that choosing to re-enlist for another tour, getting out, not using the GI bill, and instead joining the most infamously violent PMC in the country was forgivable indoctrination, but we have allegations of sexual assault and that's the straw that broke the camels back?
Fed
Frankly then I'm shocked that you do not understand. My view is informed by the people I know. I've met quite a few people to completely reverse their view once leaving the military. People that joined young, got indoctrinated and stayed in longer than they should. Typically after being pressured by the officers above them to re-enlist.
Once they got out they began to question their actions more, they began to experience a lot of feelings that they've suppressed. In turn this radicalized them. I've seen it often. Honestly you see the same things with cult survivors
Brother.
He got out and then joined blackwater. My entire argument here is that even granting the sexual assault it's (unfortunately) almost certainly one of the least violent and savage things he's done in his life. If we were willing to give a pass on that but suddenly allegations of sexual assault appear and we drop him than we are falling for the fascists plot. The republicans know full well that we've been conditioned to treat sexual assault as a capitol sin and they know that our candidates have to be more catholic than the Pope while they can source the most vile humans on earth to serve their interests.
We're fighting with a hand tied behind our back and apologizing if the other hand might inconvenience the enemy.
I'm aware, you don't see how one ingrained into that group could be convinced by his buddies to swap over to the private sector to "just do the same thing for more money". Clearly they rely on recruiting from the military because of its indoctrination practices.
Basically I see a path where one can do terrible things when pressured or indoctrination by a group. They leave the group and learn what they did was wrong. Which was demonstrated by his new views.
The issue is this rape occurred well after that and there's no outside force teaching him that's okay like the military did with violence.
I gotta give you props, usually I begrudgingly hop on the blue no matter who train, but I guess I do have some standards after all. Apparently I'm not willing to vote for rapists.
I hope I'm wrong and this is all exposed as a plot to tank him, because if that happens then he'll likely have an easy victory. But the evidence so far is pretty damning.
We are running out of opportunities to vote our way out of this. If this country even makes it to the midterms we're going to have one shot to pack the senate with enough radicals that we can end this once and for all and even that's a long shot. My support for Platner comes down to one question.
"Do I believe he would be willing to vote in favor of jailing or executing every single sitting republican official in the country, as well as complicit sitting democrats?"
Between him, Collins, and whatever AIPAC stooge the DNC pushes to replace him with my moneys on Platner.