As Democrats worry about Senate race, Platner attacks reports about sexual messages
Asked by reporters whether the reports were true, the Maine candidate said: “No."
Graham Platner, the presumptive Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, struck a defiant posture Sunday in response to reports that he had sent sexual messages to women outside his marriage, accusing a former aide of false claims and news outlets of “journalistic malpractice.”
In his first public comments on the matter, Platner said “establishment media outlets” were focused on “gossip” instead of issues such as the shuttering of childcare facilities, low wages for teachers and nurses, and “the fact that everybody down here continues to work harder and longer and get less.”
He sought to discredit news reports about the messages. Asked by reporters whether they were true, he said: “No. This is the amazing part. The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times ran stories without any evidence besides the gossip from a former staffer. I’m sorry, that’s — that’s frankly journalistic malpractice. We pushed back on it.”
The Times report, which was published Saturday, cited a current campaign official as well as a former one. Both said that Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, had told the former campaign official, Genevieve McDonald, soon after he began his bid, that he had exchanged sexual messages with multiple other women.
The current official, who was granted anonymity because she was not authorized to speak on the record, said Sunday evening that Platner was not disputing that there had been discussions of sexual messages he had sent to other women while married, but rather the number of women involved.
The Times article quoted McDonald — a onetime state legislator who was the Platner campaign’s political director before leaving in October — who said that he had exchanged messages with as many as a dozen women. And it noted that the current campaign official had said Platner had been communicating with up to six women.
Platner said McDonald was not being truthful in her account. McDonald declined to comment. In a statement Sunday evening, Platner addressed his marriage.
“Amy and I went through something hard — because of me. We did the work, and I’m grateful for her every hour of every day,” Platner said in the statement. “Our opponents want politics to be empty of content and empty of actual change — and beating that is exactly what our movement is about.”
Platner spent Sunday on the campaign trail in Portland, joining a rally in the morning, attending a canvass launch, and appearing at a gathering of leaders in the immigrant community, according to his aides.
The Maine Senate seat is seen as a key to the Democrats’ hopes of winning control of the Senate. Platner is trying to unseat Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican, in a state that President Donald Trump lost by about 7 percentage points in 2024.
Some Democrats worry that revelations about Platner’s past could hurt their chances of regaining control of the Senate.
“Yeah, I have concerns,” Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.) said on ABC’s This Week, when asked if he was worried that Platner’s messy personal history could hurt Democrats in the midterms. “That guy has questions to answer. And that’s what campaigns are for.”
Booker added that “so much is riding on Democrats’ taking control of the Senate,” saying that the country needed a check on an “out-of-control president” who he suggested was driving up costs of healthcare, childcare, and gas.
Platner’s fiery progressive campaign has become a movement in Maine. But his personal history, which includes making inflammatory statements online about women and having a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol that he has covered up, has threatened to amplify Democratic anxieties about his contest.
On Sunday, Booker and other Senate Democrats who appeared on morning TV shows were left to answer questions about the reports a day earlier regarding the sexual messages sent by Platner. And officials with the campaign arm of Senate Republicans seized on the news, circulating reports and attacking Platner.
Sen. Andy Kim (D., N.J.) said that he was not focusing on the Maine race and that he had never met Platner. “I will work with whoever the people of Maine elect,” Kim said on CNN’s State of the Union. “But I hope that they elect somebody that is going to stand up to this president.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D., Conn.) defended Platner, saying on CBS’ Face the Nation that Platner, a combat veteran who says he has struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder, had “put his life on the line for this country.”
“He has certainly admitted that he has made mistakes,” Murphy said. “But I think this is going to be a pretty clear contrast in Maine between somebody who has spent his life protecting us versus somebody who seems to be protecting Donald Trump’s corruption.”
Gertner said Saturday that her marriage was strong, and she denounced “negative stories on Graham.”
“No marriage is perfect, and I don’t want a perfect marriage,” Gertner said in a direct-to-camera video published Saturday evening. “I want my marriage, and I want to be married to Graham.”
This article originally appeared in the New York Times.