Democrats Are Already Scheming to Remove Platner From the Race

Before the votes were even counted and Graham Platner won Maine's Democrat Senate primary on Tuesday, a member of his own party was already calling for him to quit the race, openly demanding he step aside and let someone else take his place on the ballot.

And he sounded quite confident that Platner won’t be the nominee much longer.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, went on CNN Tuesday morning and made no secret of where he stands on Platner. He listed the allegations piling up against him.

"If this were in Jersey and you had a candidate who abused women, obviously has a Nazi tattoo that now it's clear that he knew was a Nazi tattoo, not to mention many of his other lies and his comments and extremist comments, pro Hamas, a terrorist organization, other things of that nature," Gottheimer said. "He should get off the ballot."

He didn't stop there. Gottheimer called on the Maine Democrat Party to intervene and install a different candidate entirely. "In Jersey, we'd throw him off the ballot or bury him under the Meadowlands," he said. "I mean, I don't understand how somebody like this is going to represent our party. And I think the best action would be for him to leave and get somebody else who's qualified onto the ballot."

Gottheimer isn't the only Democrat to speak out against Platner. Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), and Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) have also publicly disavowed Platner, and plenty of others have refused to expressly endorse him.

Gottheimer also pointed to reporting from Platner's former political director, who went on the record alleging he lied about the tattoo controversy. "The issues are just going to keep piling up," Gottheimer said. "And the New York Times piece was just one of the first piece of many issues that I think will continue to come out about him."

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CNN's John Berman pushed him on the obvious hypothetical: if Platner stays on the ballot and November comes down to Platner versus incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), what should Maine Democrats do?

Gottheimer’s response said everything.

"I don't think that's going to be the choice," he said. "So I'm not going to do that hypothetical. I think that he's going to get off the ballot soon."

If he genuinely believed Platner was going to remain as the Democrats’ nominee, he’d have found another way to sidestep the question. Instead, he's expressing confidence that Platner won’t even be a choice in November.

Think about that for a second. A sitting Democrat congressman is going on CNN to kneecap his own party's Senate nominee hours before he won his primary. That's huge.

But here’s the thing: Platner will not drop out of the race voluntarily. So Gottheimer’s confidence suggests something behind the scenes among establishment Democrats who see Platner as a problem they have to solve is going on.

This race just got a lot more interesting. Will the Democrat establishment destroy Platner to give themselves a chance to flip this Senate seat?

I wouldn’t put anything past them.