A woman who previously dated Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner said he drunkenly forced her to have sex after she told him to stop, according to a Politico report released Monday, leading prominent supporters to pull their endorsements and throwing a must-win race for the party into turmoil.
Platner denied the allegation, but said he would be considering next steps for his campaign.
“Regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting but mindful of the political reality it will inflict, we’re taking the time to reflect on the best path forward,” he said in a video released on social media.
Jenny Racicot, who lives in Maine, told Politico that Platner entered her home in 2021 while drunk and assaulted her. Racicot said she had been in an on-and-off relationship with Platner, but she cut off contact with him after that night and told him the incident wasn’t consensual. A voicemail left at a number listed for Racicot seeking comment did not receive an immediate response.
Platner’s campaign did not immediately respond to an email and phone message from The Associated Press seeking comment.
“Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically false,” Platner said in his video.
Still, the allegation sparked a flight away from a candidate who has long been controversial. Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who’d stood by Platner even as the insurgent candidate was hit with prior allegations, said Monday’s was enough. “I’ve been very clear that sexual assault or violence against women is a red line,” Khanna said. “These allegations are very serious and credible. Graham Platner should drop out from the race. I am withdrawing my endorsement.”
The re-writing of history here is insane. It was the hardcore lefties who pushed this guy, not the libs.
Tankies malding and trying to change the narrative is so typical.
I can excuse war crimes against brown people, but I draw the line at white people rape allegations.
This has been one of the biggest political races in the country for like 6 months
Why does this shit not come out when he announced running instead of the literal second he won the primary?
Fuck him and fuck victim blaming but holy fuck why? Why would you wait and go after the guy who SA you until the second he wins a primary election?
That’s what did it? Not the Nazi shit?
Just reading the comments on this you can see a lot of Lemmy users have a massive mysogyny problem.
They wanted their special white boy working class savior so goddamn bad they’re willing to look theother way on:
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Nepotism (he sells oysters to his mommy)
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Nazism
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Blackwater war tourism
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Rape
Just no principles or character at all.
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To the people that excused, and went to bat for, a genocide apologist… What’s a little rape? Honestly, I’m surprised so many are dropping him for this, maybe there’s hope yet.
I’m sure there’s something to be said about the perceived victims of the genocide, and the rape, but I don’t have time to think about it.
This has a Gary Hart vibe. Senior Democrats dont want Platner around. Platner told Stewart months ago how no one from the DNC talked to him despite leading in polls.
So now he gets railroaded on 5 year old allegations that will go nowhere.
What a shame
The woman came forward to the NYT earlier to get on record but held back the story until another accuser came forward. She has contemporaneous emails with her therapist dealing with the fallout and people in her life she told the story to around the time it happened who can confirm it, as well as woman she warned after cutting contact with Platner. These allegations are as credible as they get and some of the reactions to this story are frankly disgusting.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/06/graham-platner-sexual-assault-allegation-00987737
Yep. The Tapper interview, as disgusting as Tapper was during it, I mean this is as credible as they come. She also said she was prepared to vote for him, and that his kind of politics is what the country needs. Graham said there would be no more coming out. Its unclear where things go from here.
Fyi Politico is openly Zionist and told their staff to leave if they’re not
Yeah, smells like a hit job.
Politico, or any other outlet for that matter, can have a shitty editorial line on some things, and do quality reporting on other things.
You should be paying attention to the substance of the accusation here, which is about as credible as it gets. Not blowing it off because it’s from an outlet you dislike for a different reason.
And just like… Occam’s Razor, the guy with the SS tattoo being a bad guy isn’t exactly a wild leap of logic.
There’s even a famous skit about the exact symbol Platner had a tattoo of.
You misread the article you linked.
The woman, a 41-year-old Maine resident named Jenny Racicot, detailed the alleged incident to POLITICO in three interviews over the past two weeks. POLITICO also spoke with a man Racicot dated and confided in the years after the alleged incident, and reviewed documents, including emails between Racicot and her therapist and messages between Racicot and an acquaintance whom she warned against getting involved with Platner years before he ran for office.
Politico reviewed:
- Emails with her therapist (no date mentioned.)
- Contemporary emails with a friend (though the name of this friend has been kept secret.)
Any ambiguity is removed by the later sentence:
Racicot showed POLITICO recent emails with her therapist in which Racicot explained she was talking to the media about her relationship with Platner and the “sa/rape,”
Nowhere in the very article you linked does it mention contemporaneous therapist notes. You are spreading misinformation.
Platner can’t win. The accuser has corroborated contemporaneous communications. He’s just going to lose.
Finding this out now is a gift - he can drop out by the 13th. Rs would love to have kept this hidden until then. Now he can be replaced by the 27th (I think?)
Jackson is being floated as an alternative, but I’d love to see Heather Cox Richardson drafted
HCR has already said she has no interest in running for office, and reiterated it just last week in one of her live chats. She apparently has the idea of public office suggested to her often.
And honestly she’d be wasted* in office: she’d certainly do well in any position, but no one could do in her stead what she is doing now for us.
*Not wasted in the Kash Patel sense, obv
Fully agree, but you just made me think she’d maybe be hilarious on Drunk History
Haha, that would be great, but there is no way in hell HCR has interest in that position.
Yeah for sure, but ambition for office is almost disqualifying. Just a daydream. I think Jackson is the obvious pick, but don’t know the method by which he could become the nominee
Anyone from president of the HOA to president of the US. If they want the job, they probably shouldn’t be put there. It would be an interesting twist on politics if a person could not want the position, not run at all, but still get elected and be legally mandated to do the job. I mean, it couldn’t be worse than the way things are.
The double standards for each party is absolutely stunning.
Anyone even know off the top their head how many allegations, some even confirmed in FBI testimony, Don chomo has?
Not to mention the rape scrotus said he had to pay out.
Exactly. If our esteemed representatives in DC gave even a fraction of this same shit about an actual habitual pedophile and rapist – of his wife Ivanka, other children, and quite possibly his own daughter – sitting in the highest office in the land, what a different country we’d have today.
Some do, certainly, and I don’t want to dishonor the very real efforts of some on both sides to see the truth come out.
But as a whole, their concern about Graham Platner rings hollow as fuck. And at this point I’d vote for fucking Pol Pot raised from the dead before I voted for that dinosaur Susan Collins.
You can choose between a rapist or someone who supports, enables, and keeps in power an entire administration of rapists, including child rapists.
America!
Still better than the alternative.
Sucks that’s the choice, but it is what it is.
The alternative where he drops out and gets replaced by a not-fatally-damaged Democrat who might actually be able to win?
It’s not clear that this is a fatal accusation or that a replacement candidate selected by party bosses would be in a better position to win. Scandals just aren’t what they used to be while insider politics has been losing repeatedly.
Yeah, I think so
It’s fatal. The tattoo and earlier abuse allegations combined dragged him from a mid-high single-digit lead to a statistical tie in a race with an opponent who usually overperforms. And this latest scandal is so awful that it has caused virtually every major supporter from Chuck Schumer and the DSCC to Ro Khanna and Our Revolution to cut bait. He might still have a diehard base of true believers, but that isn’t enough to win.
People let some Nazi merc slide because he broke out the working class starter pack dialogue choices. We need to return to context clues and some basic morals. Having a Nazi tattoo is instantly disqualifying in any part but the Republican one.
Here’s the only picture I can find of the tattoo, and it’s a video of him singing Wrecking ball by Miley Cyrus, so bonus:
It’s a big black blob that I don’t think I’d clock as a tottenkopf, and Ive unfortunately seen a lot of Nazi tattoos.
A drunk marine 20 years picking a “skull and bones” off a flash wall in an eastern European country is 100% plausible. I spent too much time around junior marines as well and they really don’t ask any questions, they just go with shit.
Picking a tattoo a 12 year old would think is badass and not trying to find out what it means first 100% lines up with a Marines first deployment.
But like I said, I’ve unfortunately had to interact with full on actual Nazis in the past, similar to that timeframe even. The guys that intentionally get Nazi tattoos don’t just stop at one and theyve left a long paper trail of their racism long before that point.
If he got it cuz he was a Nazi, then it wouldn’t be the only obvious piece of evidence. A shit ton of people would have came out and said he’s a Nazi.
It is unambiguously a totenkopf, the stylized skull that SS officers had on their caps. It is exclusively a Nazi symbol and is very recognizable as it is featured in basically any media featuring Nazis. It’s not similar to a totenkopf; it’s clearly and obviously explicitly a totenkopf. You can argue whether he knew what it was or is lying but we’re not going to entertain the idea that it isn’t what it clearly is. He had a prominently displayed death’s head on his chest for 18 years. It was, in no uncertain terms, a Nazi with a capital N tattoo.
In 2026 should someone have recognized it?
Maybe.
But we’re talking about 20 fucking years ago chief
You’re right, in the mid aughts we had completely forgotten entirely about Nazi Germany and there was no popular media prominently featuring Nazis in any way whatsoever and there’s just no way that anyone could recognize a regularly featured exclusively Nazi symbol worn by SS officers. Your Nazi apologism is showing again.
+1. Everyone says Nazi tattoo like it was a swastika lol. The Death Head was pretty well neutralized in 2007. It was in the same tier as barber wire, just an edgy thing people did. Call of Duty offered it as a official emblem you could put on your playercard lol. The ADL didn’t even consider it a hate symbol until 2020.
It is an exclusively Nazi symbol. It hasn’t been neutralized at all, US Americans are just stupid. The goddamn thing is literally in every piece of media featuring SS officers. It’s in memes. It’s incredibly recognizable to anyone that actually earned their high school diploma. You can argue whether Platner knew what is was when he got it, but you don’t get to argue that the totenkopf isn’t an exclusively Nazi symbol, because it is, and that’s clearly what the tattoo was of. We’re not republicans, we don’t substitute actual reality with our delusions because it’s convenient.
As a child, I was actually interested it history; and, as an edgelord, especially interested in gruesome totalitarian regimes. I played a lot of war-themed games, inevitably many had Nazis. Of course the games aren’t usually historically accurate but led me to read more about the actual events.
I had seen the totenkopf decades ago but did not know this was a Nazi symbol until I saw the Mitchell & Webb skit about ten years ago. If you asked me for Nazi logos, I would have come up with the swastika, the SS lightning bolts, and the Adler (which is used by the good guys in the Contra video game series).
(album cover of Singles 1-12 by Melvins, 1997)
Can confirm, Americans stupid; we were never shown this symbol and now our country is infested with fascists.
No idea how it is in america, but here in Germany most people would immediately clock it.
I’d never seen or heard of it till hearing people complain about him having it.
It will never not be funny to me that people are totally okay with a pirate tattoo, but not a Nazi tattoo. Pirates routinely raped, tortured, murdered and pillaged.
Pillaged yes, raped/tortured? That’s iffy. Murder I’m sure happened, but take Blackbeard for instance, all intimidation, never had to kill anyone until he was attacked by the Navy and killed.
Many of the successful pirates like Bart Roberts had rules about rape.
Every crew had their own rules, but if you want to make a list of bad things pirates did you might want to put slavery at the top. Think there was more pirates that stole slaves and resold them then there were murdering people without reason.
Yup. The people here are so desperate that they’ll accept literally anyone who gives them the most basic lip service. It’s pathetic.
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Least deranged liberal: “The rapist should sue the victim!”
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How is it deranged
Lmao literally self reporting
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Wow, nice job sitting there casting dispersion on a rape victim, all because your party is godawful at fielding candidates and you’re desperate.
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My takeaway is always… The people that raped me didnt change. It doesnt mean that they can’t but they didnt and I could continue to hate them for the pieces of shit they continued to be. I could use my past to add to the pile of the present but at some point we have to stop just letting just the past set a whole picture of people and use the present to define them as well. People are not morally singular unlike what idiots think.
I am so tired of people thinking they are being helpful by grandstanding punishment for some rape victims arbitrarily where they think they can enact justice rather than building a world for victims to actually get it. Its not yours to have if you are not the victim.
Yikes. The fuck is this shit.
If shes willing to bring her face to the media why not at this point bring it to court? Or the emails with the therapist, why not show that? With message headers to prove they’re real.
Platner should sue her at this point and persist.
Gee whiz, why don’t more rape victims come forward when supposed allies treat them like this?
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She’s not just saying whatever the fuck she wants. She has evidence as well.
Questioning the trauma a rape victim is enduring because she isn’t acting the way YOU want her to is gross.
Even the Epstein victims that got raped by multiple men went to court first.
No they fucking did not.
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Again, a rape victim not acting the way you expect or the way you would act doesn’t mean they’re lying.
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or an off balance girlfriend who threatens this if you dont come out and talk to her more than once
I hope you never date a woman, you’ll just never believe them.
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You think those victims told no one but the courts first?
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Yeah totally rational behavior when called out for victim blaming.
Have a good one.
Ain’t no one “going to the courts” first. That’s not even possible with something like this. There are so many steps before you can even touch FOOT in a court, and that’s assuming it even gets there at all. People tell their support network first, be that a family member or a friend.
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You have no idea if she has filed a report by this time. You all have no idea how difficult it is to report rape.
98% of perpetrators never see a court room or jail time.
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You clearly didn’t actually read any of the articles. She describes the difficulties she faced coming forward.
Have you read her account in her words at all or just comment sections?
You’re right you don’t get it. Thankfully.
Assuming what she says is true she experienced real trauma. (Not that Tik Tok BS)
Real trauma physically alters your brain. A physically altered brain does not behave the way people expect it to.
Coming out exactly a week before the candidate can be switched makes this fishy…
If they wanted a real investigation, they’d have said it earlier. And if he is guilty, he can just pull a Cuomo and run anyways.
But if he’s innocent and cares most about beating Republicans, he might drop anyways like Al Franken.
Yuuurp. And 90% of people (even on here) are eating it up. Subverting primaries is a Dem past time
And discrediting and disbelieving rape victims is a past time shared by all political spectrums.
Fine. I have a solution that should make everyone happy. We elect Platner now. In turn, he promises to resign as soon as a credible and progressive candidate can be selected that will share his values. Platner can endorse that person, then the whole state can pressure Janet Mills to appoint that person after Platner resigns. He can win the election and then resign the day he’s sworn in.
“Believe rape victims” does not mean “hand the race to a corporatist Dem or a Republican.”
This would satisfy things, wouldn’t it? Platner wouldn’t actually get to serve a Senate term. Justice would be served. Yet, somehow, I think justice may not be your actual highest priority.
If it’s this easy to sling allegations around then progressive candidates everywhere are fucked.
Why bother voting when you can just accuse a candidate of rape? It’s super effective, apparently. Unless they’re a republican, at least…
Crazy thing about this is that there are just enough details that I believe it is real, but just enough missing pieces that it puts it in doubt…
- Platner was supposedly drunk af and according to Racicot and didn’t remember anything the next day, so it would be plausible Platner himself can’t recall anything about the incident.
- All the messages she sent to Platner are gone (Does he still have them? Platner never getting the messages and Platner hiding those messages are both plausible possibilities.)
- No official records of the incident, just her telling her therapist, boyfriend, and other friend, and the boyfriend repeated the story to Politico.
- Some fb message exchange with the other friend released, claims it was in 2023 but we can’t see the date.
- We don’t have the emails with dates, just Politico’s descriptions of them.
- The NYT didn’t confirm nor deny whether Racicot was one of the other accusers that spoke in more vague terms about his behaviour.
Yes, this is a piece that can make plenty of people feel vindicated about their hunches on Platner. But the way this came out and how the media jumped on this story while it has passed over oodles of testimony of Trump committing sexual assault, I can equally understand people being suspicious as well. And it is a playbook that can be trotted out whether there is a true story behind it or not, anytime there is a Democratic candidate for a position that didn’t come from a prestigious institution with everything given to them on a silver platter.
People are crying for “average” people to be part of government, this is an average person we got from Maine and now many are getting upset. People who haven’t had anything happen that could be construed as scandalous from their high school prom to now, where a story like this could credibly be denied, are shut-ins like me who aren’t interested in dating and wouldn’t seriously think to run in politics, or are well-educated with above-average wealth.
People are crying for “average” people to be part of government, this is an average person we got from Maine and now many are getting upset. People who haven’t had anything happen that could be construed as scandalous from their high school prom to now, where a story like this could credibly be denied, are shut-ins like me who aren’t interested in dating and wouldn’t seriously think to run in politics, or are well-educated with above-average wealth.
Your argument is that there are so many rapists amongst average people that we have no choice but to elect them?
There are a lot of people who date and don’t rape people.
Jesus Christ.
I’m not saying every average person is a rapist, but since it’s a common enough experience (21% of women) despite underreporting: https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics/statistics-depth/, I’m saying most people could be believably accused of an incident like this happening in their lifetime. And people who have been long scrutinized in a political career or from an elite institution will tend to be able to stay clear of incidents like these.
And it’s an entirely separate issue, that unless Platner steps down, the election is currently a choice between him and an incumbent Senator that at best might say she is concerned about women’s rights being taken away but will do nothing, and at worst will support a party that plans to take even more rights away from women, including the right to vote. If one wants to hold a consistent position as to “blue no matter who”, the same applies for a potential rapist as it does a bland corporate dem, as it does a former policewoman, as it does a Muslim democratic socilaist.
Listen, as more info comes out verifying the claims from the Politico article or perhaps other revelations I think Platner may be best to step down. That’s his choice to make, but I think we should be measured when evaluating every accusation and claim of whatever nature, instead of getting in a frenzy.
I agree he should step down. I don’t think it’s helpful to push that this is the best representation we can find from average people. I’ve always been against “vote blue no matter who” for exactly these types of scenarios.
If one wants to hold a consistent position as to “blue no matter who”, the same applies for a potential rapist as it does a bland corporate dem, as it does a former policewoman, as it does a Muslim democratic socilaist.
We shouldn’t hold the position of “vote blue no matter who”. I can’t believe the discussion we’re all having is that we should vote for a rapist and that the ends justifies the means.
You don’t need to hold that position, I can tell that you haven’t and I respect that. It is, however a position that can be held amongst many opinions. My point is that, if it was employed in one of the other cases I mentioned, it should be employed here to avoid hypocrisy.
Yeah, people make it way too easy for the entrenched powers to manipulate them. At this point if the republicans hold onto a thin senate majority, I won’t have any sympathy for the dumbass voters who fell for such a transparent tactic again.
We won’t be able to fix our broken system until we stop proving that uncorroborated mudslinging works better than actually offering good policy.
Al Franken leaving was so fucking dumb. What he did was so fucking minor.
