By admin 
A lot of people called for Graham Platner to drop out of Maine’s Senate race Monday night, after a rape allegation surfaced against the Democratic nominee. But relatively few of them were Republicans.
Even Platner’s GOP opponent, Sen. Susan Collins, called the allegations against the oysterman “appalling” but added that it was “not up to me to choose the Democratic nominee for Senate.”
There’s a simple reason for that: Democrats’ hopes of winning the seat and, by extension, the Senate, could hinge on Platner stepping aside.
For now, Platner is still in the race, and he denies the allegation from former girlfriend Jenny Racicot that he showed up at her residence drunk five years ago and raped her. CNN and Politico, which first reported the story, both corroborated Racicot’s account with people and documents that show she talked about him sexually assaulting her before he was a political candidate.
Platner said Monday that he will take some time to “reflect” on his candidacy. Platner is also reportedly trying to guide the Maine Democratic Party toward a potential replacement with whom he is politically aligned.
So, it might just be a matter of time. July 13 is the deadline for the state party to replace him on the ballot if he withdraws.
How much that recasts the race largely depends on who would replace him. Some seemingly strong contenders are epidemiologist Nirav Shah, who finished second in the state’s gubernatorial primary last month, and former state Senate President Troy Jackson, who finished third but is more politically aligned with Platner and the Bernie Sanders wing of the party. Others mentioned include Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and beer entrepreneur Dan Kleban, who briefly ran for Senate.
But Platner had indisputably become a liability even before the latest accusation, based on recent polling.
While he had been pretty popular before a series of controversies, including revelations about a now-covered tattoo with Nazi imagery and allegations of unsettling behavior toward women he dated, that had begun to change.
A New York Times-Portland Press Herald-Siena poll late last month showed likely Maine voters disliked him 50%-45%, and twice as many had a “very unfavorable” view (36%) as a “very favorable” one (18%).
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A conducted in the same window showed registered voters disliked him 53%-43%. It was also the first quality poll to show him narrowly trailing Collins (50%-47%, within the margin of error).
And the warning signs went beyond those topline numbers.
To wit:
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54% of registered voters said they were at least “very” concerned that Platner lacked the judgment to be a US senator, per the Fox poll. That included 24% of Democrats.
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47% of likely voters said the phrase “too extreme” described Platner at least somewhat well, and 50% said the phrase “good character” did not describe him too well or at all, according to the Times poll.
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29% of Platner supporters said his various controversies made them question their support for him, per the Times poll.
Platner was also significantly underperforming both Maine’s Democratic nominee for governor, Hannah Pingree, who led by 11-15 points in the two polls, and the generic ballot, which favored Democrats by 11 points in the Times poll.
To be clear, much of that is about Collins, who has a proven ability to survive in a blue state. She won her 2020 campaign by 9 points even as Democrats carried the state at the presidential level by 9 points — an incredible 18-point split.
But Platner’s personal unpopularity and the reservations harbored by even many of his supporters were already putting Democrats’ hopes at risk. And that’s even clearer now.
That doesn’t mean Platner has no chance of winning. Even the Fox poll, conducted before the reporting on the rape allegation but after plenty of other controversies, showed him leading by 9 points among the most motivated voters. President Donald Trump’s problems and the Democratic enthusiasm edge they have engendered could paper over a lot. And Trump was quite notably elected in 2024 even after being found liable in civil court for sexual abuse (which the president continues to deny).
But if you’re the Democratic Party, you’d rather have a candidate who can make the race more about Trump rather than the ability to weather personal scandals.
Of course, a more generic replacement wouldn’t necessarily win. Collins’ 2020 opponent, Sara Gideon, led in virtually every poll before she lost by a wide margin, and that history will continue to haunt Democrats in the months to come regardless of who their nominee is.
But that election aside, fewer and fewer politicians have been able to pull off what Collins did in 2020. Federal races are commonly dictated by how people feel about the incumbent president. And Trump is about 20 points underwater in Maine, according to the new polls.
Given Maine is probably a must-win state for Democrats’ difficult path to the Senate majority, the stakes for choosing a candidate are extremely high.
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