Graham Platner’s Senate campaign is all but over. The progressive Maine Democratic Senate candidate with enough skeletons in his closet to fill a cemetery announced Monday that he’d be “reflecting” on the best path forward after an ex-girlfriend, Jenny Racicot, accused him of rape.
We’re bringing you two stories about Platner’s downfall and what it means. Scroll down to read our editorial, in which we unpack how Platner lasted so long, and the troubling double standards this story has revealed in the media and the Democratic Party. But first, read Caitlin Flanagan’s proposal for a new, Platner-inspired entry into the political lexicon: The Honest Oysterman. —The Editors
The journalists and politicians who brought you the slogan “Believe Women” are making themselves awfully hard to believe. That’s because they’re so fickle about the women they choose to credit and the others who they tarnish as liars, all depending on their politics. The downfall of Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner is a case in point.
Platner’s Senate campaign is all but dead after Jenny Racicot, a 41-year-old Maine resident who dated Platner on and off for more than two years, told Politico that he raped her in 2021 after entering her home uninvited and heavily intoxicated. Within hours of the Politico story’s publication, senior Democrats—including some of Platner’s most loyal champions like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders—had rescinded their endorsements. Platner has denied the allegations but is “taking the time to reflect on the best path forward.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who leads the main Senate campaign arm, promised to withhold funding if Platner stayed in the race.
The entire party is lining up to denounce Platner, and their stern condemnations are meant to show off their credentials as defenders of women’s dignity. Mainstream journalists are taking the latest allegations seriously. Yet both the politicians and the press sounded very different only weeks ago, when the first allegations of sexual impropriety from a former partner of Platner’s were reported. That’s because the principal claims came from a woman who happens to be a Republican.
