Some top Democrats are struggling to respond to the latest controversy surrounding Graham Platner, whose campaign in Maine is essential to the party’s attempt to win back control of the Senate in the midterm elections.
In the last week, Platner has faced new scrutiny for sexual messages he sent to women outside his marriage. Before that, his primary campaign had overcome blowback for offensive posts he made online years ago about women, as well as for a tattoo he had resembling a Nazi symbol, which he later had covered up.
But new critical accounts came on Thursday, when my colleagues reported that three women who dated Platner described volatile relationships in which his actions could be unsettling or disturbing. They spoke to the women in extensive conversations over the past two months. (They also spoke to several ex-girlfriends this week who said they felt safe with him.)
Here are some of the key takeaways:
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One woman, Lyndsey Fifield, 40, a Virginia conservative who has worked for right-leaning groups and Republican campaigns and who dated Mr. Platner from roughly 2013 to 2015, said that he regularly grabbed her by her shoulders, sometimes so hard that it left marks. On one occasion, she said, he grabbed her wrist and yanked her out of a cab after they argued. During another argument, she said, he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out. He told her to remain there until she was “calm,” she recalled. Eventually, she fell asleep and left the next morning. (Platner “strongly disputes” any claims of physical intimidation or altercations, his campaign said.)
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Fifield said that Platner would fantasize about killing people he deemed a threat. She recounted that he frequently said that he would rape anyone who broke into his home, describing rape as a show of power.
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Platner has repeatedly said he did not know his chest tattoo was a Nazi symbol until it became a campaign issue last fall. But Fifield said that his claim was untrue, and that he had called it “my Totenkopf.” In a private chat group last summer, months before Platner acknowledged the tattoo himself, she told friends about the tattoo, according to a screenshot she shared with my colleagues. (Platner “strongly disputes” Fifield’s account of what he knew about the tattoo and what he told her, his campaign said.)
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Another woman, Jenny Racicot, 41, a Maine Democrat who said she dated Platner casually off and on between 2019 and 2021, said that in 2021, he arrived at her house drunk, after she had asked him not to come over. She declined to elaborate, but said she cut off contact soon after that episode and had found his behavior “reckless” and “unsettling.”
The reporting only added to Democratic fears that Platner may have more baggage that is yet to be revealed. A military veteran and oysterman, he has often been held up as the type of candidate Democrats need to win back working-class voters — but he is new to the political scene and has not been vetted as thoroughly as some of the party’s other top Senate recruits.
Platner is forging ahead.
He told MS NOW last night that he would not drop out of the race, and he is expected to appear this evening at a campaign rally in Bar Harbor.
He is set to be joined by Representative Ro Khanna, a prominent progressive Democrat from California, who texted my colleague Reid Epstein this morning that “Platner must continue to accept responsibility for his past and speak to his redemption, which many Americans understand.”
Platner is still widely expected to win the Democratic primary on Tuesday. But his seemingly vanquished primary opponent, Gov. Janet Mills — who suspended her campaign over a month ago — is reminding voters that her name remains on the ballot.
Platner has mostly sought to move past the revelations.
On MS NOW, he said he “absolutely” took responsibility for elements of his personal history, and acknowledged “not exactly acting with the best behavior” after his service in the military.
But he reiterated that any allegations that he had behaved violently toward a girlfriend were “simply not true,” and he again denied that he had known of the tattoo’s Nazi symbolism until recently.
How much impact the revelations will have with Maine voters is hard to say. But we’ll be talking to some of them in the coming days, and the primary next week may offer more clues.
Behind the scenes, Schumer backs Stevens in Michigan
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader, has no official stance on which candidate he prefers in his party’s hotly contested Senate primary in Michigan.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I used to really like him, and I still like him, but I’m at the point where I’m nervous about things that are transpiring.”
That was Donna Awana, 77, a retiree living in Honolulu and a supporter of President Trump.
Among Republicans, the president enjoys an 82 percent approval rating, according to the latest New York Times/Siena poll, even as his overall approval ratings have reached new lows.
But, my colleague Ruth Igielnik writes, there is more doubt among his base than what is generally acknowledged. Could these skeptical Republicans represent a faint crack in his party’s bulwark?
NUMBER OF THE DAY
At least $36 million
That’s how much a little-noticed nonprofit group founded by Trump donors has raised to provide legal assistance to the president’s allies, including those who may want to sue the government over claims of unjust prosecution.
My colleagues Theodore Schleifer and Ken Bensinger obtained a recent filing submitted by the group, which comes as President Trump has retreated from a divisive plan for a $1.8 billion government-backed fund to compensate people who claim they were inappropriately targeted for prosecution, potentially including those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
ONE LAST THING
A House fight in Harlem
Arguably the fiercest primary battle in New York City this cycle may come down to how Harlem votes.
There, Representative Adriano Espaillat and his well-funded democratic socialist challenger, Darializa Avila Chevalier, are competing for votes ahead of their Democratic primary contest on June 23.
The fight, my colleagues Sally Goldenberg and Maya King write, is the latest example of the Democratic Party’s internecine clashes, as young activists take on established politicians they feel are too beholden to corporate donors, real estate interests and Israel.
Taylor Robinson contributed reporting.
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