Fresh off winning the Democrat primary for U.S. Senate in Maine on Tuesday, scandal-plagued Graham Platner is learning his next fight may not be against incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) after all.
As Platner gears up to face the five-term Republican in a race Democrats widely view as central to their hopes of taking back the Senate, NBC News is reporting some Dems are working behind the scenes to see whether Platner can be pressured to withdraw before Maine’s mid-July deadline to replace him on the ballot.
The concern: Platner’s victory followed months of damaging revelations.
The Scandals
While he effectively cruised through the primary after Maine Gov. Janet Mills dropped her Senate bid in April, Platner’s campaign has been anything but smooth sailing.
Early on, reports surfaced about a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol and some inflammatory Reddit posts (e.g. blasting fellow veterans and admitting to masturbating in a port-a-potty). In January, Platner told CNN there was nothing else out there that could damage his campaign, but that hasn’t proven to be true.
Reports that Platner sent sexually explicit messages to multiple women while he was married surfaced earlier this month, followed by new allegations involving his treatment of women, including one woman who accused him of becoming physically threatening during their relationship.
Platner denied some of the allegations, like physical abuse, but he confirmed some of the messages while insisting he is not going anywhere.
Earlier this week, Platner was asked by Mika Brzezinski on MS NOW whether more damaging information could still emerge and his answer was not exactly a denial. “Just want to make this clear: There’s nothing out there that’s actually concerning,” he claimed. “People will make everything seem very concerning because that’s what people do in politics.”
Vetting Concerns
As Platner attempts to calm voters and Democrat Party strategists, The Wall Street Journal’s Aaron Zitner pressed the activists responsible for Platner’s rise – Daniel Moraff, Leanne Fan, and Morris Katz – about how a candidate with this much baggage made it through the vetting process in the first place.
ZITNER: At this point, you hadn’t vetted Graham Platner. You hadn’t done a full scrub of who he is. How did you go about vetting him?
MORAFF: We paid a nice firm a whole chunk of money, and got some stuff back. Some of what you’ve seen on the news we got back, other stuff we didn’t.
ZITNER: Did the vetting process turn up the tattoo that became so controversial?
MORAFF: No.
ZITNER: The Reddit posts, did that turn up in the vetting process?
MORAFF: The firm sent us a thing and it had some of the posts, but it didn’t have all of them.
ZITNER: And what did you think about that? How did you think your way through the fact that he had posted these things on social media?
MORAFF: I said none of this will or should stop him from becoming a U.S. senator.
That answer is now feeding into fears inside the Democratic Party. If Platner’s own campaign did not know the full extent of his baggage before voters did, what do Republicans know?
NBC News reported some Democrats are privately discussing whether Platner can still be pressured to withdraw before Maine’s July 13 deadline. Republicans are reportedly watching that same deadline, with one unnamed GOP strategist involved in Senate campaigns telling NBC Republicans may be holding back their opposition research file until after July 13 out of fear Democrats will “Biden him” – a reference to former President Joe Biden being pushed out of the 2024 presidential race by members of his own party.
What Comes Next
National Republican groups are already starting to capitalize on Platner’s existing scandals in ads. This is one released by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) on Tuesday. Watch:
Despite the internal concern, Platner adviser Rebecca Katz told NBC News “the Democrats of Maine have made clear who their choice is, and the rest of the party should honor that choice.”
The general election set for November 3, but more shoes are sure to drop before then.
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