Democrats begin to clash over who replaces Platner even before he exits

The implosion of Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate in Maine after an accusation of rape has ripped open divisions inside the Democratic Party as its progressives and moderates battle to pick his successor even before he has said he will step aside.

National Democrats have grown alarmed that a seat seen as crucial to winning control of the Senate could be slipping from the party’s grasp. Platner had survived a series of controversies — about a tattoo with Nazi symbolism, inflammatory old Reddit posts, and his relationships with women — but many in the party abandoned him after the rape accusation, including the leaders of the Maine Democratic Party and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

They have demanded that Platner step down before a Monday deadline for him to be replaced on the ballot to find a new Democrat to run against Sen. Susan Collins, a longtime Republican fixture in the state. The main super political action committee for Democratic Senate candidates said it would redirect $24 million in ad reservations to other states if he remained.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), one of Platner’s earliest and most prominent backers, joined the chorus on Tuesday afternoon.

“I have spoken with Graham Platner about the best path forward for Maine,” Sanders said in a statement. “In light of these very serious allegations, I have recommended that he step aside.”

Platner, who has denied the allegation, said on a private call with his campaign staff on Monday evening that he believed he still had leverage to influence which candidate would replace him on the ticket, according to three people familiar with the conversation. On the call, he did not announce plans to withdraw but implied such a decision would be coming, the people said.

Platner’s campaign had stopped running ads on Meta’s platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, as of Tuesday, according to the company’s ad disclosure database. He had been running multiple ads as recently as Monday evening.

The drama comes almost exactly two years after the Democratic Party was roiled by the exit of Joe Biden, then the president, from his reelection race and the speedy anointment of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. That process — and Democrats’ ultimate loss in 2024 — has left deep scar tissue for many in the party.

Many on the left — including, it appears, Platner himself — want any replacement to come from the progressive wing of the party after he won the primary over Gov. Janet Mills, a moderate two-term Democrat, who withdrew over a month before the election.

“To the Democratic establishment: This is not your opening,” said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, a group that emerged from Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. Referring to Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, he added, “Mainers did not vote by an overwhelming margin against Janet Mills and the DSCC’s handpicked pick just to be handed another status-quo candidate anyway.”

On the flip side, many in the party establishment believe those on the left should show some humility after Platner’s collapse.

A range of Democratic groups and activists engaged in the politics of “I told you so.”

“When women raise the alarm, listen,” said a social media post from EMILY’s List, a group that works to elect Democratic women and that had backed Mills. “Graham Platner’s behavior is disqualifying (AS WE HAVE SAID THIS WHOLE DAMN TIME), and he should end his campaign.”

On Tuesday morning, more Democrats who are ideological allies of Platner called for him to step aside, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

“I believe that it’s time for him to drop out of the race,” Mamdani said when asked at a news conference. “I think the focus of today should be to respond to the gravity of what so many of us have read, and I think the only appropriate response is for the campaign to come to an end.”

Mamdani and Platner share several advisers, including Morris Katz and Rebecca Katz of the Fight Agency.

The progressive group MoveOn also dropped its endorsement.

As the situation in Maine threatened to spiral out of control, Schumer and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee are set to host major donors this week for a fundraising retreat at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. Donors are asked to contribute $44,300 to attend, according to a copy of the invitation.

The event, which was previously scheduled, was billed as a “special weekend to discuss the DSCC’s strategy and campaigns for taking back the Democratic Senate majority,” but now talk is likely to be consumed by the developments in Maine.

Platner can be replaced as the Democratic nominee if he withdraws voluntarily by Monday. The state Democratic Party would then have until July 27 to pick his replacement, under state law. But the law does not dictate how the state party itself needs to pick Platner’s replacement.

What that would look like remains unclear. The options under discussion include a convention or a statewide caucus in late July.

“We ask for your patience as this work continues,” Devon Murphy-Anderson, the state party’s executive director, wrote in a message to committee members on Tuesday, adding: “Whatever process is ultimately adopted must reflect our Democratic values. It should be open, inclusive, transparent, and fair.”

A range of candidates are being discussed, with some early attention on those who ran and lost the primary for governor this year. Those Democrats include Troy Jackson, a former president of the Maine Senate; Nirav Shah, a former director of Maine’s public health agency; and Shenna Bellows, Maine’s secretary of state. But some Democrats were concerned about elevating someone who just lost.

Supporters of Jackson, who had backed Platner in the primary, created a Draft Troy website, and he filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission for a Senate exploratory committee. Shah put out a statement that said he had received “hundreds of encouraging messages,” adding that anyone who ran for the nomination should commit to a televised debate and “multiple town halls across every corner of the state.”

Another possible candidate is Dan Kleban, a co-founder of the Maine Beer Co., a brewery outside Portland. He briefly ran for Senate last year before dropping out and endorsing Mills. But like Platner, he has never held elected office or been through the rigors of a campaign.

Yet another possibility is Jordan Wood, who also previously ran for Senate and dropped out. Wood ran instead in the primary for Rep. Jared Golden’s House seat and lost.

Golden, a moderate Democrat and veteran who holds the most pro-Trump House seat of any Democrat in Congress, is retiring and previously said he was ready to step away from elected office.

In recent days, Golden has fielded calls gauging his interest in a run for Senate, according to two people familiar with those conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions.

Golden has not commented since the latest allegations against Platner emerged.

More unconventional picks were being bandied about, as well. One Democratic firm in recent days included actor Patrick Dempsey in a poll. (He was viewed favorably by 52% of voters in the survey.) Others floated the popular liberal historian Heather Cox Richardson, who is based in Maine.

Some Democrats erupted after the news emerged that Platner wanted a replacement who was aligned with him politically. One person familiar with the Platner campaign’s internal discussions said Monday that Platner would seek a guarantee he would be replaced by someone in agreement with “the values and vision and policy agenda” that he had pressed.

Others argued that under the circumstances, Platner’s support would be damaging.

Joe Baldacci, a state senator who ran and lost in the primary for Golden’s House seat this year, said the idea that Platner would bless a replacement would be the equivalent of “tying a lead weight” to the person.

“After you have put the Democratic Party in a shambles and undermined all Democratic candidates running for office in Maine then you should have no say in who will be your successor,” Baldacci wrote on social media. He added, “Any connections to Platner will doom that person’s campaign from the very beginning.”

This article originally appeared in the New York Times.