Rumors were flying on Monday that Graham Platner is potentially planning to drop out of the race for the U.S. Senate in Maine after Politico published a report about a woman who dated Platner and claims he sexually assaulted her.
Jenny Racicot, 41, told Politico that he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections. She detailed the alleged incident in three interviews over the past two weeks.
Politico did more than take her word for it. The outlet spoke with a man Racicot dated and confided in during the years after the alleged incident, and it reviewed documents, including emails between Racicot and her therapist and messages between Racicot and an acquaintance she warned against getting involved with Platner years before he ever ran for office.
The campaign responded with its usual script.
"These allegations are very serious, and Graham vigorously denies them," the campaign said in a statement. "They are also coached and coordinated by out-of-state establishment operatives. For a year, opponents of this campaign have thrown everything they can at Graham – calling him a Nazi, a war criminal, and a communist. None of it has been true and this is no different. It is not a coincidence that this story comes a week before the ballot deadline, just as the previous false allegations came a week before the primary."
But here’s what Platner doesn’t want you to know about Racicot: she supports Platner's politics. She told Politico she wrestled with coming forward because of it. "One of the reasons I didn't come forward sooner was, the huge moral conflict that I had between supporting his politics, but not supporting him as a person," she said. "I just want the truth out there. I just want people to have a whole scope of who he is as a person."
Does that sound like a coached establishment operative? A woman who shares Platner's politics gains nothing from sinking a candidate she agrees with. She warned a friend about him years before he entered the race, and the paper trail predates the campaign entirely.
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Racicot said she felt compelled to go public because of what happened after The New York Times published its story on Platner last month. That article largely focused on Lyndsey Fifield, another woman who alleged that Platner mistreated her. Critics dismissed Fifield's account because of her ties to the Republican Party.
Fifield says that was the plan all along.
"It dawned on me that this really was a set up all along," Fifield said last month. "The journalists I trusted who convinced me to share a story I never wanted to tell methodically delayed and twisted this into a gift to the Platner campaign. Violating the trust of his victims. Shattering the trust I placed in them with the most vulnerable story of my life."
She also said the Times spiked sexual assault accusations from the article, choosing instead to spotlight her work as a Republican operative, giving the campaign an easy excuse to dismiss the allegations.
Platner denies the allegations and says he is taking time off to reflect on the path forward.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
It seems likely that he's realizing that his campaign doesn't have a viable path forward. But he did raise a lot of money after the New York Times story dropped, so maybe he thinks he can ride this out. Democrats do have a legal window to replace him on the ballot. Platner would have to drop out voluntarily by July 14 to give Democrats the ability to legally select a replacement for him on the ballot. If Platner drops out after that date, they’re stuck.
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