What the Graham Platner scandal says about Democratic Party's troubles

In the look for how to win o'er working-class voters missed to Donald ruff and the Republicans, the Democrats were torn betwixt two different visions for their party.

Should it offer a more populist, left-leaning message or a more centrist, moderate approach?

In a race that could determine control of the U.S. Senate, the Democrats went with the populist vision literally embodied by Graham Platner — a bearded, tattooed, never-before-elected military veteran and oyster farmer from Maine.

That is, until his campaign imploded this week when a former girlfriend told Politico and CNN that Platner had sexually assaulted her. And it was by no means the first allegation of troubling past behaviour.

Maine Democrat Graham Platner halting U.S. Senate run amid sexual assault allegation

Platner, who insists the accusation is false, announced late Wednesday he would withdraw from the race, while defiantly accusing the party establishment of using the allegations to crush the grassroots movement that propelled him to win the Democrat primary last month.

The Democrats must now scramble to choose a candidate to replace Platner and hope the controversy doesn't jeopardize the party's chances of winning the Senate seat long held by Maine Republican Susan Collins.

The Platner saga has put a spotlight on the internal tensions between the establishment and insurgent wings of the party.

The left-wing political consultants who plucked Platner out of obscurity and built a narrative for his candidacy failed to do proper due diligence on his background, says David Karol, an associate professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland.

He criticizes both main factions in the Democrats for what has unfolded.

The party leadership backed 78-year-old Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who struggled to raise money, consistently trailed Platner in the polls, then abandoned her primary campaign this spring.

"The Democratic establishment got behind a candidate who was too old and who didn't really meet the moment in terms of energy," Karol said. "Organizers on the left, I think, irresponsibly promoted someone who they didn't know very well."

His controversies include a Nazi tattoo. Why Democrats are still standing by Senate candidate Graham Platner

Well before this week's sexual assault accusation, there had already been plenty of evidence that Platner had a troubled past, including his disturbing, at times violent social media posts and allegations of mistreating women.

And then there was his Nazi tattoo, a skull-and-crossbones insignia on his chest, which Platner claimed not to know was used by Hitler’s SS.

Yet it was only this week that Platner's high-profile backers, including senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — withdrew their support.

"What does it say about Platner’s defenders that his other horrible behaviour was within their range of acceptability?" asked Mike Nelson, a retired Army Special Forces officer, in an essay for The Atlantic.

"Not only did they stand by Platner; they expressed outrage toward those of us who said he was unfit," Nelson wrote.

The recriminations are yet again exposing the rift between establishment and anti-establishment Democrats that has divided the party since the 2016 candidacy of Hillary Clinton resulted in the first Trump presidency.

As party insiders jockey for position on installing a candidate to replace Platner, some Democrats say it's triggering memories of what went wrong in the 2024 presidential campaign, with Joe Biden eventually stepping aside for Kamala Harris.

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Julia Azari, a professor of political science at Marquette University in Milwaukee, says she does not believe the Platner scandal will make it harder for anti-establishment Democrats to win elections.

"He doesn't identify with the Democratic Socialists of America," she said, referring to the organization behind New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, among others. "He is a left-leaning, progressive populist in his policy stances, but he's not really part of that group."

Azari says the Democrats will face a "moment of decision" in the 2028 presidential primaries about just how big of a tent the party should be.

But for now, the test facing the Democrats comes in the midterms this fall.

The Republicans currently hold a 53-47 lead in the Senate. So long as the Democrats retain the seats they currently hold — something that's not guaranteed — they can win control of the Senate by flipping four seats from red to blue in November.

Beyond Maine, their next best shots to do so appear to be in North Carolina, Ohio and Alaska. Some Democrats are starting to believe they could also flip Iowa or even Texas, but those would require a significant Republican collapse.

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Karol, the University of Maryland political scientist, believes the Democrats' prospects of wresting control of Congress away from the Republicans remain good.

That's because the GOP's margins in the House and Senate are slim, Trump is deeply unpopular, and over the past century, the sitting president's party has almost always lost seats in the midterms.

"While this is a very messy situation in Maine, and while there are divisions within the Democratic Party that we see playing out in other primaries, I think that they're very likely to win the House of Representatives and to gain ground in the Senate as well," Karol said.

"It is possible that they could win the Senate without Maine, which is something that I wouldn't have said months ago, but it would be much harder."

The Maine Democratic Party announced Wednesday that it will hold a convention to choose a new candidate. The deadline to get a name on the Senate ballot is July 27.

Correspondent

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