Faulty reasoning signals

• Negativity Bias - 27.2%
• Optimism Bias - 8.2%
• Bandwagon - 7.8%

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Maine oysterman Graham Platner has dropped his bid to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins after an allegation of sexual assault led to prominent Democrats abandoning his campaign .

Platner, a political novice, saw his campaign rocked when Politico reported that he had sexually assaulted an ex-girlfriend, which he vehemently denied. The revelation, however, came after several other reports of potentially troubling behavior and past history dogged Platner throughout his campaign.

Platner put out a video where he continued to deny the accusations.

“We're not doing it because of the allegations,” he said in a video posted on X. “We're doing it because of the structures that are being taken away from us by those in power.”

His exit came just days before the July 13 deadline for Democrats to remove Platner from the ballot and after a number of Democratic Senators and left-wing advocates called on him to step aside.

Maine’s seat, currently held by five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins, is a must-win if Democrats they want to flip the Senate . Democrats in Maine now have until July 27 at 5 p.m. to replace Platner.

Platner, a political newcomer, retired combat veteran for the U.S. Army and Marine Corps and oysterman, said that if he stayed in the race, he would lose the resources to run a viable campaign.

“This is incredibly difficult, because I know that some will think it's an admission of guilt,” he said. “And it most certainly is not. We're not doing this because of the allegations, we're doing this because of the structures being taken away from us by those in power.”

It is not clear how the state Democratic Party would go about replacing Platner, who had raised a significant amount of money and earned the support of the party’s progressive wing, winning endorsements from New England Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Platner and the Maine Democratic Party had a tense back-and-forth about the process to succeed him as the nominee for the Senate race.

But the report in Politico was not the first major controversy Platner has faced.

Graham Platner addressed a new allegation of sexual assault from an ex-girlfriend in a video message on Monday ( X - Graham Platner )

He came under criticism for a host of his previous posts on Reddit where he opined on why Black people do not tip and sexual assault. He faced additional scrutiny for a tattoo on his chest that resembled a Nazi Totenkopf symbol used by SS units during the Holocaust .

Platner denied that he had any knowledge of the tattoo’s origins, which he said he received in Croatia when serving in the military and apologized for his past online comments, attributing them to dealing with untreated post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps.

He again came under fire when stories in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal reported that he had exchanged sexually explicit text messages with other women shortly after his marriage. An additional story in The Times reported that he engaged in “unsettling” behavior.

Despite this, it appeared that Democratic voters brushed off the controversy. Maine Gov. Janet Mills, 78, the preferred candidate of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, suspended her campaign due to a lack of money and a campaign that largely avoided retail politics. When Mills ran an ad highlighting Platner’s comments, it almost immediately backfired.

Platner also visited Capitol Hill as it appeared the field looked increasingly clear for him to be the sole candidate to challenge Collins, who has held the seat since 1996.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is running for her sixth term for Senate in a state that otherwise overwhelmingly elects Democrats. ( Getty )

The top candidates to replace Platner on the ballot now include Troy Jackson, who served as president of the Maine Senate; Maine Beer Company co-founder and former Senate candidate Dan Kleban; Nirav Shah, the former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention; and Mattie Daugherty, the current president of the Maine Senate.

Many Democrats in Maine had opted to run instead for governor, including Jackson and Shah. Some feared that Collins could pull off another upset in the way that she did in 2020 when she shocked many by winning re-election despite Joe Biden winning the state.

“I think we need to figure out a way of Democrats to work our way out of the situation, I think there are strong people who could do this, and I think we could, and win it,” Joe Baldacci, who ran as a candidate for Maine’s 2nd district in the House of Representatives, told The Independent .

The report from Politico rattled both Platner’s supporters on the left and mainstream Democrats. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who shared a political adviser with Platner in Morris Katz, called on him to exit, as did many other Democrats. Sanders, Platner’s political mentor and first major booster, also said Platner needed to step aside.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the chief outlet meant to elect Democrats, put out a statement all but cutting Platner off.

“The allegations reported today are incredibly disturbing – violence, abuse and sexual assault are absolutely unacceptable,” Schumer and DSCC Chairwoman Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said in a statement earlier this week.

The Maine Democratic Party announced on Wednesday evening the process it would take to pick a new candidate. The party will hold a meeting with 100 state committee members who voted to hold a nominating convention.

Platner called for the process to be open and to reflect the will of voters given that he ran an explicitly populist campaign.

“I'm not trying to dictate to anyone who it should be or how we get there, but I will say this: it needs to be open, transparent, and democratic,” he said.

The campaign has already begun. By Wednesday, before Platner’s exit, Jackson’s campaign advertised an internal poll showing he would beat Collins.

Republicans for their part did not seem to be phased by the exit.

“Maine Democrats elected a rapist Nazi to be their nominee for Senate, and regardless of who they anoint next, Susan Collins will be re-elected in November,” National Republican Senatorial Committee regional spokesperson Samantha Cantrell said in a statement.