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The People Who Stood By Graham Platner — Until He Was Accused of Rape

Democratic strategist Adam Carlson backed Platner through all his other scandals. He says he shares the blame, but that people are learning the wrong lessons.

The Democratic Party is once again in upheaval as Graham Platner, its unconventional nominee to knock out longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, faces a rape accusation that threatens to end his once-powerful campaign and endanger Democrats’ chances of flipping a key seat in the November midterm elections.

Platner, a Marine veteran and oyster farmer whose anti-establishment campaign had already weathered a series of scandals, has denied the rape allegation from ex-girlfriend Jenny Racicot, which Politico first reported on Monday. His campaign said the allegation was “coached and coordinated by out-of-state establishment operatives,” though it was supported by messages Racicot sent in 2023, long before Platner had a political profile. 

Despite Platner’s denials, a cascade of Democratic politicians, operatives, and organizations have called on him to drop out of the race by 5 p.m. next Monday, in time to be removed from the general election ballot. Platner has said he would only drop out if he’s allowed to pick his successor to face Collins in November. If Platner withdraws, Maine Democrats would have to pick a new candidate by July 27.

The Left Put Its Faith in Graham Platner. Will He Break Its Heart?

That’s set off a scramble to find a replacement nominee and point fingers over the darkest chapter yet in a race that had already drawn national attention for a series of controversies — including accusations that Platner had twisted another woman’s arm behind her back and trapped her in a room; a sexting scandal; a Nazi tattoo; and a series of Reddit posts in which he belittled sexual assault, asked why Black people don’t tip, and disparaged white and rural voters. (Platner has denied that he mistreated women and apologized for the tattoo, text messages, and Reddit posts.)

Where does the Democratic Party — and the insurgent movement that saw Platner as a powerful rebuke to the establishment — go now? 

We’re bringing you an extra episode of The Intercept Briefing this week to cover Platner’s downfall and where Maine voters might look next. In this episode, host Akela Lacy speaks with Adam Carlson, a Democratic strategist and founding partner of the polling firm Zenith Research who supported Platner through all the other scandals until Monday — and now says he was wrong.

“We — as in, the people who were looking for something different — looked at past nominees against Collins and wanted to try something different,” Carlson told The Intercept Briefing. “An outsider, someone who could appeal to white working-class voters, appeal to disaffected Trump voters, independents, Republicans, maybe someone who didn’t fall neatly along partisan lines, progressive economic populist, but also pro-Second Amendment. A bit more heterodox.” When Platner launched his campaign, “it’s, like, here comes this guy who epitomizes what we are lacking.”

The story has reanimated the age-old feud between Democrats loyal to the party establishment and a surging cohort of progressive and leftist candidates bucking the party line. But while competing factions rush to use Platner’s downfall as evidence of their own political prowess, Carlson says, they’re learning the wrong lessons.

“Me Too” Comes Back to Congress

“Yes, you should have better vetting. Yes, having people who are in public office who have faced some level of media scrutiny are less likely to have these kinds of things appear. Not foolproof: Look at Eric Swalwell,” Carlson said. “But I think you can overlearn the lessons from this and try and turn this into a factional win. And I think that all this is subtext for the conversation that we’re about to have in 2028.”

For more, listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen.

Akela Lacy: Welcome to the Intercept briefing. I’m Akela Lacy, senior politics reporter at the Intercept.

We’re bringing you an extra episode this week because there has been a serious and troubling update in the Maine Democratic Senate race. Candidate Graham Platner was accused of raping a woman in 2021, according to reporting from Politico on Monday.

The woman, Jenny Racicot, came forward after having previously told the New York Times that Plattner had displayed “reckless” and “unsettling behavior” toward her in a story last month. She reportedly told the Times off the record about the rape allegation, but it was not publicly reported before Politico broke the story on Monday.

In a campaign video Platner released after the story published, he denied the allegation and called it, “troubling, serious, and false.” 

Graham Platner: I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically false.

AL: Platner has said his campaign is considering its next options, and observers expect him to drop out in the coming days after a flurry of Democrats and organizations that had endorsed him called on him to do so. But as of this recording on Tuesday evening, he has not dropped out.

In a separate statement, Platner’s campaign claimed the rape allegation, which was supported by multiple accounts, including messages from 2023, well before he launched his Senate campaign, was “coached and coordinated by out-of-state establishment operatives.” 

For listeners who might have forgotten, the rape allegation comes after Platner already had another women claim he was physically aggressive with her apologize for having a Nazi tattoo and authoring a series of Reddit posts belittling sexual assault, asking why Black people don’t tip, and making other controversial statements about white rural voters and police.

How did Platner get away with all those blemishes for so long? What does this mean for Democrats’ chances in Maine? To discuss all of this, I’m joined by Adam Carlson, who was a Platner supporter until the most recent news broke. Carlson is a founding partner of Zenith Research, a political polling firm that works with Democrats.

Adam, welcome to The Intercept Briefing.

Adam Carlson: Thanks for having me.

AL: You are someone who supported Graham Platner through all of his other scandals. When did you first learn about this allegation, and what was your reaction?

AC: I first learned about this specific allegation that came out on Monday about the alleged sexual assault when the story came out. There were all kinds of rumors buzzing around, potentially other oppo that may have been dropping later. Maybe Republicans were planning on dropping it after the dropout deadline on July 13. I heard about it when Politico broke the story.

AL: You published a long post on Tuesday morning with some reflections from this fallout. You wrote, “There are a lot of people who bear responsibility for this. The team that didn’t vet him properly. The people (like me) who bought his schtick hook line and sinker and used their platforms to not just promote him early on, and stuck with him after just an insane amount of obvious red flags for months on end — I should have known better, and I for one will be doing a lot of introspection (and hopefully lesson-learning) on how I got to that place of cognitive dissonance.”

You also talk about the blame on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for trying to foist Gov. Janet Mills on the electorate. I want you to walk us through this a little bit and explain what you’re talking about with respect to that cognitive dissonance here.

Why do you think so many people fell into that?

AC: I’ll speak to what I fell into. I can’t speak for anybody else, but I can’t imagine I am alone just given the meteoric success that Graham had coming out of the gate. I think the Democrats have been struggling for a long time, at least since 2016, probably before then. 2016 is when it really kicked into high gear with white working-class voters.

Maine is a very white state. The general electorate is very working-class, low-college-educated, a bit older – representative of a lot of groups that Democrats have struggled with of late, and that we’re looking to get back.

Susan Collins is a very formidable challenger, always overperforms her polling, her benchmarks, wins in tough environments. I think that we — as in, the people who were looking for something different — looked at past nominees against Collins and wanted to try something different. An outsider, someone who could appeal to white working-class voters, appeal to disaffected Trump voters, independents, Republicans, maybe someone who didn’t fall neatly along partisan lines, progressive economic populist, but also pro-Second Amendment. A bit more heterodox. And here comes this guy........

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