(LifeSiteNews) – Graham Platner, the Democrat Party’s scandal-plagued nominee for U.S. Senate in Maine, announced Wednesday evening he is dropping out of the race following a rape accusation party insiders deemed too much for his campaign to bear.

In a video message posted to X, Platner maintained his innocence while announcing he was “suspending campaign operations” for his “movement to continue” without the liability he has become, but did not admit to raping ex-girlfriend Jenny Racicot in 2021.

“I just want to make it clear this is all false. The things that have been claimed did not happen. It’s not real,” he declared. “We’re not doing it because of the allegations. We’re doing it because of the structures that are being taken away from us by those in power,” he added, insinuating that “corporate media” and the “political establishment” were conspiring against him.

My name might be on the ballot right now, but that ballot line belongs to the people of Maine. pic.twitter.com/RKVyLU76tm

— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 9, 2026

Democrats can easily replace Platner on the ballot as long as he formally drops out by July 13, at which point the party will have until July 27 to replace him without a new primary. Potential replacements floated so far include state Sen. Brian Bryant, Senate President Troy Jackson, and Gov. Janet Mills. Platner previously indicated he would make a say in his replacement a condition of dropping out.

Platner is a veteran who served three tours with the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq and one tour in Afghanistan with the Army National Guard. A former defense contractor and oyster farmer, he is running to unseat incumbent U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a long-serving liberal Republican. A month ago, the RealClearPolitics polling average had him leading Collins by almost eight points, giving Democrats hopes he could be the key to flipping the seat, but that lead has narrowed to less than a single percentage point following a deluge of scandals.

This week, the race was rocked by Racicot’s accusation that Platner came to her home one night in 2021, drunk and uninvited, and “forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”

Politico says it was able to corroborate parts of Raciot’s story by speaking with someone in whom Racicot confided about it, as well as reviewing communications about Platner Racicot had had with her therapist and an acquaintance she warned away from him.

The Platner campaign denied the allegations, but they made several national Democrats fearful enough to demand he withdraw, including the pro-Democrat Senate Majority PAC pulling its financial support for Platner’s campaign.

This is far from the first headache Platner has given those hoping to oust Collins.

Among them have been a skull-and-crossbones tattoo resembling a Nazi death’s-head symbol (he claimed the resemblance was purely accidental), old social media comments mocking combat veteran and Purple Heart recipient Teddy Daniels as a “dumb (expletive)” who “didn’t deserve to live” after surviving a Taliban ambush, a wealth of crude sexual comments on the platform Reddit, and accusations of misrepresenting the circumstances of his own service in the course of attacking Collins for having “voted to send me to Iraq” when in fact he chose to enlist after the Iraq War had begun.

On May 30, the Wall Street Journal reported that Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, notified the campaign within days of its launch that her husband’s phone contained “sexually explicit texts with several women” that could pose future political headaches. Campaign aides “ultimately decided the texts were a private matter that was being handled by the couple in marriage counseling,” according to the report. Further, he sent them via Kik, a platform described by the National Center for Sexual Exploitation (NCSE) as a “predator’s paradise.”

Share