Morning Digest: Bombshell rape allegations upend Graham Platner's campaign

The candidate denied the accusations but hinted he might drop out

Graham Platner. (Credit: Graham Platner Facebook)

Leading Off

ME-Sen

Jenny Racicot, a 41-year-old Maine woman, accused Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner of raping her in 2021 in a story first published by Politico on Monday afternoon.

Platner denied the allegations, but many of his most prominent supporters responded by rescinding their endorsements and calling on him to abandon his campaign against Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

Under Maine law, Platner must drop out by 5 PM ET on Monday for Democrats to be able to choose a substitute candidate. If he does, they would have until July 27 to choose an alternate, though the party’s bylaws appear to be silent on how that process might work. If, however, Platner were to try to quit after Monday’s deadline, Democrats would have very limited options for replacing him.

Powerful institutions quickly threatened to withhold financial support if Platner remains in the race. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee—which backed Platner after its first choice, Gov. Janet Mills, gave up her own bid in April—released a statement calling Racicot’s allegations “incredibly disturbing” and warning that it “will not invest in the Maine Senate race if Platner remains on the ballot.”

Racicot told Politico that one night late in 2021, after she and Platner had dated on and off for two years, he let himself into her home even though she had asked him not to visit. (”Like many others in their town” in rural Maine, “Racicot did not keep her front door locked,” CNN explained.)

Platner then “got on top of her and kept grabbing her, she said, while she repeatedly told him to stop and that she wasn’t interested,” Politico wrote. Racicot said she could smell liquor on Platner’s breath and concluded he was “almost blackout drunk” because he ignored her demands to stop.

“I had been telling him these words, like: ‘No, don’t,’” she told the publication. “And, the look on his face and realizing what was happening, I just realized that, like, I am in a situation where there’s no consent here.”

“I remember him grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me,” she said. “I remember the specific moment where I thought to myself, like, ‘This is no longer my choice.’”

Racicot said that Platner ejaculated inside her even though she’d told him not to because she was not using birth control. Platner then passed out, but Racicot said she feared waking him and telling him to leave because of the danger he might pose on the roads.

The next morning, according to Racicot, Platner said he could not remember what had transpired the previous night. Racicot said she then “told him to leave and never contact her again.” After determining she wasn’t pregnant several weeks later, she said she messaged Platner to tell him “the encounter was not consensual and she did not want to hear from him ever again.”

Racicot previously spoke with the New York Times for a piece last month that recounted the candidate’s “volatile and ‘toxic’ relationships” with several different women. Racicot told Politico that she had described the alleged 2021 assault to the paper off the record but did not want to go public “because she didn’t want to be known as a rape victim.”

However, she said she changed her mind after another woman who talked to the Times about Platner, Lyndsey Fifield, was attacked because of her work as a Republican operative. Racicot, however, said she supports Platner’s politics.

“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 told Politico. “I just want the truth out there. I just want people to have a whole scope of who he is as a person.”

In a statement, Platner was defiant.

“These allegations are very serious and Graham vigorously denies them. 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.”

The statement further promised that “no amount of desperate smears will stop this movement from seeing that vision through.”

However, in a video posted to X shortly after Politico’s piece was published, Platner suggested that he might not continue his campaign.

“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful of the political reality it will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins,” he said.

Democrats are considering multiple options for replacing Platner should he drop out, according to the Times, including a statewide caucus or a “pop-up convention on the weekend of July 25.” Officials have, however, “ruled out” a vote by the Democratic Party’s governing board, the 113-member Democratic State Committee.

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2Q Fundraising

• FL-Sen: Alex Vindman (D): $8.5 million raised

• KS-Sen: Adam Hamilton (D): $3.66 million raised (in two months)

• VT-Gov: (March 15 to June 30):

  • Phil Scott (R-inc): $48,000 raised, $240,000 cash on hand

  • Aly Richards (D): $366,000 raised, $132,000 cash on hand

  • Amanda Janoo (D): $165,000 raised, $54,000 cash on hand

• FL-13: Leela Gray (D): $500,000 raised, $750,000 cash on hand

• MA-06:

  • Dan Koh (D): $1 million raised

  • Tram Nguyen (D): $265,000 raised

• MA-08: Patrick Roath (D): $223,000 raised, $458,000 cash on hand

• MI-10: Eric Chung (D): $400,000 raised, $1 million cash on hand

• SC-01: Nancy Lacore (D): $1.2 million raised, $397,000 cash on hand

Senate

MI-Sen

Facing plummeting poll numbers that had seen her fall to a distant third place, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow dropped her bid for Michigan’s open Senate seat over the holiday weekend.

McMorrow did not endorse either of her rivals for the Democratic nomination, Rep. Haley Stevens or former Wayne County Health Director Abdul El-Sayed. However, following her departure, EMILYs List, which helps to elect pro-choice Democratic women but had not weighed in on the race, got behind Stevens’ campaign.

Recent polls have all shown El-Sayed in front, though to varying degrees. According to an aggregate compiled by FiftyPlusOne, El-Sayed leads Stevens 39-29 on average, though these figures rely on surveys fielded before McMorrow left the race. The trio had been roughly tied as recently as late April, but McMorrow was at just 13% when she dropped out.

The winner of the Democratic primary will take on former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in November.

Governors

CO-Gov

Later-counted ballots have moved pastor Victor Marx ahead of state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer in last week’s Republican primary for governor in Colorado, putting Marx on track to face Democrat Phil Weiser in the fall.

On election night, Kirkmeyer led Marx 40.2 to 39.4, but at the time, the Associated Press estimated that only 88% of votes had been tallied. However, voters who waited until the day of the primary to turn in their ballots—Colorado is an all-mail state and typically counts these votes last—appear to have had a stronger preference for Marx’s bizarre campaign over Kirkmeyer’s more mainstream conservative appeal.

As a result, with an estimated 98% of the vote reporting, Marx has pulled ahead 39.8 to 39.5, a difference of about 2,000 votes. Given the small number of votes left and the favorable trends for Marx in the last several batches of ballots, he’s unlikely to relinquish that lead.

House

AZ-01

The DCCC is running a new joint ad with former TV news anchor Marlene Galan-Woods, one of several Democrats vying in the July 21 primary for Arizona’s open 1st Congressional District.

The spot largely focuses on Donald Trump’s abuses of power and promises that Galan-Woods will “stand up against MAGA Republicans.” The ad concludes by saying that Republicans “know Galan-Woods can win this election, and it’s why they’ve attacked her.”

However, the GOP effort to prevent her from winning the Democratic nomination—which was tied to a former treasurer for George Santos—unfolded last cycle, when Galan-Woods finished third in a tightly bunched-up primary.

The winner that year, physician and former state Rep. Amish Shah, is also running again after losing 52-48 to Republican Rep. Dave Schweikert in the general election. Joining them are a pair of businessmen, Rick McCartney and Jonathan Treble.

It’s not clear how much the DCCC is spending or why it’s taking sides in the race, though the committee telegraphed the move in May when it added Galan-Woods to its “Red to Blue” list for top candidates.

Republicans have a three-way primary in the race to succeed Schweikert, who is running for governor, but former Arizona Cardinals kicker Jay Feeley appears to have the inside track thanks to an endorsement from Trump.

MO-01

AIPAC’s United Democracy Project has launched its first ad in support of Democratic Rep. Wesley Bell ahead of his rematch next month against former Rep. Cori Bush, whom Bell defeated two years ago.

UDP’s new spot does not mention Bush or, as is the group’s standard practice, Israel or any related topic. The narrator instead praises Bell’s record as St. Louis County’s first Black prosecuting attorney and declares that he’s “leading the fight to abolish ICE.”

FEC reports show that UDP has spent just over $540,000 in Missouri’s 1st District, though there’s almost certainly far more where that came from. UDP spent around $8.5 million in 2024 to help Bell unseat Bush, an ardent critic of Israel, in the primary for this safely Democratic seat in and around St. Louis.

NY-21

Assemblyman Robert Smullen declined on Friday to run on the Conservative Party line after losing last month’s Republican primary for New York’s open 21st District to wealthy businessman Anthony Constantino.

In a statement, Smullen said he spoke with Donald Trump before making his decision and is “energized about keeping NY-21 in Republican hands,” though unlike Trump, he did not endorse Constantino.

Conservative Party chair Gerard Kassar told Politico in response that his party’s line would remain blank in the general election, when Constantino will face Democrat Blake Gendebien. A late May survey for Gendebien, a dairy farmer, found Constantino ahead just 45-44 in a two-way race, despite the district’s deep-red lean.

Ballot Measures

ID Ballot

Voters will have the chance to restore abortion rights in Idaho this year now that the state’s top election official says organizers have likely collected enough signatures to place a measure on the ballot in November.

The plan, known as the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act, would end the near-total abortion ban that took effect in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

The new statute would instead “establish a right to make private reproductive health care decisions, including abortion up to fetal viability and in medical emergencies.” Among medical experts, fetal viability, which is when a fetus can survive outside a womb, is generally viewed as beginning at around 23 to 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Idahoans United for Women and Families, the campaign behind the initiative, last week submitted what it says are nearly 110,000 signatures to Republican Secretary of State Phil McGrane’s office as the second part in a two-step signature verification process.

State law gave the campaign through the end of April to collect 70,725 valid signatures, a figure that represents 6% of Idaho’s registered voters, and also hit specific targets in 18 of the state’s 35 legislative districts. The signatures first went to the state’s 44 county clerks for verification, and then to McGrane after the process was completed.

There isn’t much suspense, though, about what the secretary of state will determine. Last week, McGrane told the Idaho Capital Sun that the initiatives’ proponents likely have “met the threshold” to qualify for the ballot.

Idahoans United will face a challenging task to convince voters in one of the most conservative states in the nation to do away with its near-total abortion ban, but the campaign has reason to be optimistic,

A poll from Boise State University last November found about 60% of respondents favored the proposed initiative, with about half that opposed. There have not been any new surveys this year, however.

NE Ballot

Conservative activists seeking to replace Nebraska’s prohibition on abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy with a near-total ban on the procedure failed to submit enough signatures to place their proposed amendment on the November ballot by Thursday’s deadline.

The campaign, operating under the name Choose Life Now, needed just shy of 126,000 signatures but said in a press release that they’d only collected “tens of thousands.” It’s the second cycle in a row that the group has been unable to put its abortion ban before voters.

In 2024, Choose Life Now sought to qualify a similar amendment, but the effort went nowhere after organizers raised little money. Instead, though, voters approved the 12-week ban—which had already been the law in Nebraska but not part of the state constitution—while rejecting a rival amendment that would have guaranteed the right to an abortion until fetal viability.

Poll Pile

• AK-Gov (top-four): Public Policy Polling for Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins:

  • Tom Begich (D): 16, Kreiss-Tomkins (D): 13, Dave Bronson (R): 13, Bernadette Wilson (R): 12, Click Bishop (R): 10, Bill Walker (I): 8, other candidates 3% or less, undecided: 27.

• MI-Gov (R): OnMessage Inc. for John James:

  • James: 46, Perry Johnson: 21, Mike Cox: 14.

  • April: 41-18 James.

• NY-Gov: co/efficient for Coalition to Protect Nassau Taxpayers:

  • Kathy Hochul (D-inc): 47, Bruce Blakeman (R): 41.

• MI-07: Data for Progress for William Lawrence:

  • Lawrence (D): 48, Tom Barrett (R-inc): 46.

  • Barrett (R-inc): 46, Bridget Brink (D): 45.

  • Barrett (R-inc): 47, Matt Maasdam (D): 46.

• OH-15: Hart Research Associates for House Majority PAC:

  • Mike Carey (R-inc): 45, Don Leonard (D): 40, Brennan Barrington (L): 3.

• TX-34: Ragnar Research Partners for Eric Flores:

  • Flores (R): 44, Vicente Gonzalez (D-inc): 41.

• WI-03: FM3 Research for House Majority PAC:

  • Rebecca Cooke (D): 50, Derrick Van Orden (R-inc): 46.