Graham Platner was supposed to have dropped out by now. The news reports designed — yes, designed — to force him out of his seemingly doomed Senate campaign began dribbling out early Monday, initiating the 24 to 48-hour long kabuki performance leading to his inevitable resignation.
"As of this tweet, as far as I'm aware, Graham Platner still hasn't dropped out," Varad Mehta posted at 9:39 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Wednesday, "Which means he's survived whatever 'over' for when he'd bail most people would've set on Monday when the news broke."
The latest from the New York Post is that Platner refuses to quit "unless he gets to approve his successor" in the Democrats' increasingly comical effort to unseat Republican incumbent Susan Collins.
Every second Platner clings to his nomination like Hitler in his bunker is another second his replacement won't have to run against Collins, and he knows it.
PJ Media's own Rick Moran was more generous, on Tuesday predicting Platner would wait until Thursday or Friday to drop out, wondering, as so many did, "How in the name of all that is good and holy did the Democrats ever think Platner was a viable candidate?"
I'd give him until Monday's final ballot deadline — if then.
My own deeply felt schadenfreude aside, why shouldn't Platner dig in?
Micky Kaus pointed out that Platner "has the leverage. All he has to do to screw the Dem party is... nothing." And my RedState colleague Bonchie described the Left's "nuclear levels of cope" over their rapey Nazi: "He’s a mentally disturbed do-nothing who works for his mom. He doesn’t care about the party. Why would he? And there is no mechanism to forcibly remove him."
There's the old saw — possibly apocryphal and attributed to everyone from Winston Churchill to Groucho Marx — about asking the "proper lady" if she'd sleep with so-and-so for a million dollars, and she says, "Yes." When asked if she'd sleep with him for five dollars, she replies "What kind of woman do you think I am?" And the man says, "We've established that; now we're just haggling over the price."
Make no mistake. Democrats are the whores in the Platner story, willing to overlook a Nazi tattoo, anger management issues, credible rape allegations, public airing of sex fetishes, admissions to joining the military just so he could kill people, and more. All because they thought they finally had a workingman candidate who could beat Collins.
Now Platner is haggling over the price of his withdrawal, and he has until Sunday night to bleed his party nearly dry.
And if he decides to stay in? Well, he just might. Platner knows — we all know — that Dems will likely line right back up behind him all the way until election day. High-profile Dems and media types (but I repeat myself) endorsed Platner when they knew about the Nazi tattoo and everything else, and only withdrew their endorsements when he looked like a loser.
They'll backflip again should the need arise. Platner knows that, too.
But maybe my favorite part of this sordid story is watching the Complicit Media's comical and desperate attempts at CYA.
New w/ @hollyotterbein:
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) July 8, 2026
Platner was a walking time bomb long before the rape allegation he denied this week.
The cracks in Platner's well-crafted image were evident from the beginning if Dems were willing to see them — especially progressiveshttps://t.co/f266QOOupY
"Well-crafted," really?
They want you to believe that Platner's oyster-farmer schtick was well-crafted, because otherwise, their entire narrative falls apart.
Then there's Harvard-trained political analyst Matt Stoller, who wants — needs — you to believe it would have taken a "clairvoyant" to figure out that Platner was damaged goods.
I literally can't even with this guy, and I'm usually quite skilled at evens.
Who knows, maybe Platner drops out even before you finish reading this column. Maybe he holds on with bloody fingernails until Sunday. Maybe he limps across the finish line on election day, a sad loser to one of the most unloved Republicans in the entire Senate.
You don't know. I don't know. But however it ends, it's one helluva show.
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