As Calls Mount for Graham Platner to Drop Out of Senate Race, What Happens Next in Maine?

Maine’s Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner has yet to drop out of the race despite losing all major endorsements after a rape allegation by an ex-girlfriend, Jenny Racicot, who says Platner assaulted her in 2021. Platner has denied the claim. “There’s no way to force Platner off the ballot; he has to make the decision,” says Amy Fried, professor emerita of political science at the University of Maine. Platner would have to drop out of the race by Monday, “and then there’s two weeks for the Maine Democratic Party to pick someone else.” Fried discusses potential Democratic candidates to replace Platner and the legacy of Republican Maine Senator Susan Collins, against whom they would be running in November. Transcript AMY GOODMAN: In Maine, Democratic nominee for Senate Graham Platner is yet to drop out of the race, despite losing all major endorsements, from Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to California Congressmember Ro Khanna. The chair of the Maine Democratic Party and other party leaders posted a statement calling on Platner to drop out. Under state law, Maine’s Democratic Party can name a replacement for Platner on the November ballot if he withdraws from the race by next Monday. The outcome of the election could determine the balance of power in the U.S. Senate. Calls for his withdrawal follow serious allegations of sexual assault made by Maine resident Jenny Racicot, first reported by Politico Monday. Racicot says she met Platner in 2019. They dated casually for about two years, until a night in 2021. According to Racicot, that night, Platner texted her, saying he would come over. Despite asking him not to, he came over anyway and let himself into her unlocked house. She then repeatedly told Platner she wasn’t in the mood, but he persisted. They first scuffled on the couch, and a sewing table was knocked over. This is Jenny Racicot speaking to CNN’s Jake Tapper. JENNY RACICOT: I remember just at first being like, “Hey, I’m not into this. Like, don’t. I’m not in the mood. Like, don’t,” whatever. And it got to the point where I was like, “OK, I feel like I’ve said this enough times.” Like, he’s not listening to me, or he’s not hearing me. And I looked at him, and I remember this very specific look in his eyes. And I could smell alcohol. And I was like, “This is different.” He is heavily intoxicated, like, and that blank stare was kind of like a photographic memory that — that I still have of that night and his — that was me recognizing what the situation was. And this wasn’t just like, “Oh, hey, somebody showed up, and I’m going to tell him to go home.” Like, he was heavily intoxicated, had intentions with me, and wasn’t listening when I said no. … I evaluated my safety. Like, a drunk person who’s blackout drunk is in my home, has these intentions with me, you know, has already caused this amount of destruction, and not listening to me. And so, I basically felt safest just complying. JAKE TAPPER: Is there any way that he thought this was consensual, or no? Just because — JENNY RACICOT: I don’t believe that you can think that that scenario was consensual. You have to — you have to understand that that wasn’t, when somebody is repeatedly — I mean, when somebody in the middle of it says, “Don’t touch me,” like — JAKE TAPPER: Yeah. JENNY RACICOT: — that’s obviously not consensual. JAKE TAPPER: Let me be as direct as I can: Did Graham Platner rape you? JENNY RACICOT: By definition, yes. AMY GOODMAN: Graham Platner has denied the allegations. This is a video he posted Monday afternoon. GRAHAM PLATNER: I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false. … We are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to and the goal of defeating Susan Collins. AMY GOODMAN: On Tuesday night, the executive director of the Maine Democratic Party, Devon Murphy-Anderson, said Graham Platner’s team had been trying to influence how the party might proceed if and when Platner drops out of the race. DEVON MURPHY-ANDERSON: 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. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, nor in determining what this process looks like. We have also reiterated that Graham Platner must drop out of this race, so that Democrats in Maine can focus on defeating Susan Collins this November. AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Maine, where we’re joined by Amy Fried, professor emerita of political science at the University of Maine. She writes on Maine and politics on her Substack, Political Sightlines, her latest piece headlined “After Platner withdraws, what next?” So, Professor Fried, thanks so much for being with us. You say “after he withdraws.” Are you confident he will? Talk about that. And then, who are the various candidates who are being talked about? AMY FRIED: Well, we can’t be absolutely certain that Platner will withdraw. It is up to him. However, I think there’s been enormous pressure, since, as you pointed out, he has lost all of his endorsements. And I think he’ll find it very difficult to go forward, really, to raise any money, which, interestingly and ironically, was the reason that Janet Mills cited for her dropping out. And I think that there has been, over time, some pulling back from him from some Maine Democrats, starting with the sexting allegations, and then the initial abuse story that The New York Times had, because those were issues that were more recent than some of the previous sorts of things, plus they involved behavior rather than merely words. AMY GOODMAN: So — AMY FRIED: As to your question about — yeah. AMY GOODMAN: No, go ahead. AMY FRIED: Please, go ahead. AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead. Talk about what happens next. I mean, this is extremely new. I mean, Maine has not dealt with this before. Very few states have. And so, talk about the schedule, and then why this is so significant. I mean, whoever this Democratic candidate is takes on Susan Collins. But like your background there where you’re sitting, Maine is a blue state. It has voted for the presidential candidate from 2000 right through to Kamala Harris. Susan Collins is a Republican senator. It is a key decider, that position, of who will control the Senate. So, start with the calendar of — what? Next Monday, he would have to pull out by, and if he doesn’t, his name will remain on the ballot? AMY FRIED: Right. There’s no way to force Platner off the ballot; he has to make the decision. Otherwise, the only way that a nominee can be replaced is if they’re seriously ill or passes away, something like that. But he would have to make the decision by Monday, and then there’s two weeks for the Maine Democratic Party to pick someone else. And they have yet to develop a process, but the leadership of the Maine Democratic Party has said that they plan to have something as inclusive and transparent as possible. Now, what exactly that will look like is unclear at this point. And I don’t think they’re going to release a plan until, you know, Mr. Platner drops out, should — assuming that he does. But various things that I’ve heard floated include things like some caucuses or even some kind of convention, which perhaps could be in person, or maybe virtual. But, you know, it’s a very complicated logistical matter, really. You know, how do you bring people together? Are there spaces available in the Maine summer, when we have, you know, many tourists visiting? And exactly how can this be accomplished? AMY GOODMAN: Of course, there are comparisons made to what happened when Joe Biden announced Kamala Harris would replace him, the concern that people felt that they didn’t have a role in choosing who would be the Democratic candidate. If you can talk about who the possibilities are at this point? AMY FRIED: Well, the names that I’ve heard floated the most are individuals who ran for governor recently. You know, the primary for the Maine governor was the same day as Senate primary, so it wasn’t very long ago. And the top finishers that are closest to Platner and have the most credibility, probably, more broadly, with the electorate include Troy Jackson, who is from a working-class background — he was a logger, and he was the Senate president; he was very much supported by Maine labor unions — and then also Shenna Bellows — AMY GOODMAN: And he ran — he ran — AMY FRIED: — who’s the sitting secretary of state. AMY GOODMAN: Just to be clear — just to be clear, Troy Jackson ran to be the Democratic nominee for governor in Maine and lost in the primary to Hannah Pingree. So far, he’s the only possible — AMY FRIED: Right. AMY GOODMAN: — replacement to Graham Platner who’s filed paperwork to formally explore a bid for the Senate. I wanted to go to an ad released by his campaign for governor. TROY JACKSON: I’m a logger from Allagash. In '98, we were getting squeezed by greedy billionaires trying to replace us, so we blocked the border. When they arrested us, they thought they had won. But I was just getting started. For 20 years, I fought against the corporations and Republicans who've been holding us back in Maine. I’m Troy Jackson, and I’m the only Democrat for governor endorsed by Bernie Sanders. And my only special interest is you. AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Troy Jackson. And one of the issues that has been raised is the issue of the movement, which is definitely pulling away, to say the least, from Graham Platner, but the positions he took on different issues, from, you know, Medicare for All, endless wars, these kinds of issues. If you could address that, and then go on to other candidates? AMY FRIED: Sure. Those are very important issues, and they’re important in Maine. They’re important in other states. And I think those are good messages to take to the general election. There’s also been, I think, increasing knowledge about the damage that Susan Collins has done. She’s run for a very long time in positioning herself with this moderate, centrist, bipartisan brand that just doesn’t seem to hold up very well, when she has a record of voting 95% of the time with Donald Trump last year. AMY GOODMAN: If you can talk about her role — AMY FRIED: So, I think — AMY GOODMAN: — in the Supreme Court and Trump’s nominees for the Supreme Court, particularly Brett Kavanaugh? AMY FRIED: Absolutely. There was enormous amount of organization, when she was deciding whether to support Brett Kavanaugh, to try to dissuade her from doing so. And she took that vote before the last election, before the last Senate election in 2020, where she was reelected. But at that time, she said that she believed that Justice Kavanaugh would not vote to overturn Roe. Now we have that in the rearview mirror, and we know that he did indeed do so. So, it, you know, casts a lot of questions on her credibility, her judgment, whether she was even being honest about it. And she has supported many other federal judges who Trump has nominated, as well, and they’re part of the situation, as well. So, I’d say that Collins is vulnerable, and she was vulnerable in 2020. That’s a long, complicated story as to how that turned out. But going forward, I think that her seat is still at risk with the right candidate, and it’s just enormously important for control of the Senate. Also, if Platner stays in, there’s money that will flow elsewhere. National money that was going to be spent in Maine on the Senate race, from both sides, is not going to probably be spent here, and instead it will go against Democratic candidates in other swing states. So, it has implications not only for control of the Senate, which is itself enormous, but also on other Senate races that could be winnable by Democrats. AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to Shenna Bellows. She is the secretary of state for Maine. This was her ad for governor. SECRETARY OF STATE SHENNA BELLOWS: Growing up in Maine, like so many families, we didn’t have it easy. We didn’t have running water or electricity until I was in the fifth grade, but, somehow, my parents never made us feel poor. My dad was a carpenter who worked hard to support us. My mom worked factory jobs, making light bulbs and Christmas wreaths. My parents taught me that if you want something, you work hard, no shortcuts, no excuses. And while we’re paying our taxes or helping our parents measure out their medications, our country is being demolished by a greedy, unelected billionaire who thinks his dollars are more powerful than our voices. Right now we need leaders who will meet the moment. AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Shenna Bellows. If you can talk about her campaign and what it would mean if she were to run? AMY FRIED: Secretary Bellows has a really long history of doing a number of different things in Maine. She was very active in a number of rights organizations. She was at one time the head of the Maine ACLU. At another point, she was the head of the Maine Holocaust and Human Rights Center. She worked a lot on the marriage equality campaign, so she’s very active in LGBTQ+ rights. And she, you know, was elected to the Legislature, and then she’s been serving as secretary of state. She made news a couple of years ago nationally, because a case came to her challenging the eligibility of Donald Trump on the ballot under 14th Amendment insurrection grounds, and she ruled that he was not eligible. That, of course, was overturned by the Supreme Court, but it was a kind of major decision that she made, I think, based on the evidence before her and the legal briefs before her. So, she’s been a very, very stalwart advocate for voting rights. And I think she has a lot going for her as a potential candidate, as well. AMY GOODMAN: And finally, in this last minute, there’s Dr. Nirav Shah. There’s — of course, there’s the governor, who suspended her campaign as Graham Platner was crushing her in the Democratic primary for Senate, Governor Janet Mills. If you can talk about, as you all move forward, what would it mean if Platner stayed in the race? AMY FRIED: If Platner stayed in the race, I think it would be extremely difficult to beat Susan Collins. You know, I think there already were a number of people who were feeling like maybe they couldn’t support him after the abuse allegations. They might not have voted for Susan Collins, but they might have sat it out instead. And I just don’t think that he’s going to have a path forward. His numbers and polling went down significantly after the sexting and the initial abuse story. AMY GOODMAN: And it doesn’t look like he will, based on the video that he put out. But we’ll continue to follow this story. As some say, “As goes Maine, so goes the nation.” Amy Fried, professor emerita of political science at the University of Maine. She writes on Maine and politics in her Substack, Political Sightlines. Her latest piece, “After Platner withdraws, what next?” Coming up, we go to Turkey, where the NATO summit is underway. Stay with us. [break] AMY GOODMAN: “Greed” by Sweet Honey in the Rock in our firehouse studio. Media Options