A woman who dated Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.
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.
Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner, who is now the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.
“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.’”
Well this seems a lot more believable than everything in the NYT story. I was all in on Platner and still have some skepticism of this just due to the sheer amount of political ratfuckery in this country, but yeah this probably could end his campaign unless some other evidence against it comes out fast.
The timing of this, seeing some random people on Threads/Twitter say another accusation against him is coming a few hours ago, articles about how to replace a candidate in Maine ready to go right away etc., is definitely really suspicious too. This whole thing fucking sucks dude.
End his campaign and then what? Why would anyone, with the state the county is in, want Susan Collins to continue to provide a fascist vote?
Platner just isn’t going to win after this unless it’s roundly debunked. Would I still vote for him over Collins in November if I lived in Maine? Probably, but I wouldn’t be pumped about it at all anymore.
Best case scenario is he drops out and the Maine DSC nominates a new candidate who isn’t Mills.
Not possible.
And, honestly, if I were him, I’d cut a deal to just recoup costs and go home.
Nominating a new person is a loss. Platner got to where he is because he’s an outsider and charismatic. Which is what wins elections. Subbing in someone who the party establishment chooses will be neither of those things.
We’re stuck relying on that charisma and anti-establishment sentiment to blow through this. And if many other elections are anything to go by, it’s got a good chance of doing so.
Yeah. That trick has never worked. Most recently, it didn’t work for VP Harris.
You are asking Democratic voters to overlook a credible rape allegation, we are not Republicans. It’s not going to happen, Platner is not going to win after this.
I don’t know how the Maine DSC works, but it’s not a given they’ll shit out Mills depending how they work. In my state, delegates from each caucus would vote for it, and our delegates this year were HEAVILY left-leaning (a midwestern state).
Seems to be a lot of folk arguing we should still support Platner in here.
Denial (cope?) stage. Give it a day or two, I hope
Bill Clinton still gets a speaking slot at Democratic conventions.
That’s not a good comparison at all. People don’t vote for speakers at conventions, and Bill is very unpopular and would get decimated in any election right now even if he was 20 years younger
Source on Bill Clinton’s unpopularity? Because him speaking is only ever a minor controversy with progressives and that’s more because of his shitty third way policies that have caused a lot of harm.
He’s the 12th most popular Democrat in this YouGov poll, sandwiched between Mark Kelly and Pete Buttigieg.
Apparently so is forcibly raping people.
That’s how the accusation hits the front page, but the Not Guilty verdict is on page 16 in a year. If he comes out not-guilty, I wanna see lawsuits.
Should Platner take his own advice then?
Should have thought of that back when Platner’s giant red flags were first flown, i.e. from the beginning of his run, when there was still plenty of time to find a better candidate. But no, he had the charisma to suck everyone in, so it was deny, delay, and defend, up to now at the last minute when the evidence has, as it obviously and inevitably would, piled up to undeniable level and everyone is screwed again. smh. He can’t win now no matter what.
Why do you think someone with a blue tie has to vote blue all the time? Do you think it’s a magic tie?
We know how Susan Collins votes. We don’t need to speculate what her winning will do.
And we know how fascists vote, and its not along party lines. The ‘Military History buff’ who ‘didn’t know he had a nazi tattoo,’ the ‘innocent reformed soldier’ who fucking served in Abu Grahib during all the torture, then couldn’t get enough of killing civilians so he joined Blackwater, probably isn’t going to vote dem regardless of what happens.
Someone having a D next to their name does not magically make them vote the way you want them to, they have no legal or constitutional requirement to do so. Recalls take 2/3rds of a state legislature to vote on it. That’s never going to happen even the bluest of states.
You think the Nazi rapist won’t end up casting fascist votes?
I think you’re delusional about the Nazi part and well, being a drunken abuser sucks but it’s not going to be as bad as being a known fascist supporter.
If you really want Susan Collins to win, I don’t think you have a moral leg to stand on with respect to literally anything else. She’s voted for things a million times worse.
How many signs do you need? It’s comical at this point, you’re like the West World robots “doesn’t look like anything to me”
Oh I’m delusional about the obvious Nazi tattoos this rapist was sporting? Me? I’m the delusional one?
Hahahahahahahaha
Yeah I really wanted to believe that Platner was better than he seemed.
I’m sad to have my expectations met :(
He was a “military history buff” who had no idea what a totenkopf was but miraculously had one on his chest for decades. And he joined fucking Blackwater as a merc. The only thing he had going for him was he said a few good things about health insurance. Oh, and he had no political history at all so there was no track record of him doing anything other than “being an oyster farmer” with his family money.
So many of us were pointing out he was an even shittier version of fetterman (who also had massive red flags everyone chose to ignore). None of this is a surprise.
People supported Platner despite his red flags because he’s an outsider. Which as you already pointed out, it’s exactly how Fetterman got in. There are plenty of candidates who got in who lived a regular life. Plenty of people don’t have pasts as sordid as this guy. I can’t imagine running at all knowing he has so many skeletons.
What is especially frustrating is that one of the other people in the primary basically had a very similar platform AND was also a military vet. But she was a she so of course the podcast bros didn’t care.
I get that this is maine so “drain the swamp” probably WAS a smart play but… holy fuck there were so many red flags.
And he had a LOT of support from establishment Democrats since at least January of this year. Which is another thing he and other “outsiders” have in common, I guess.
No real winning outcome on this. A guy with a credible SA allegation doesn’t deserve to be a Senator, we don’t deserve another term of Susan Collins or a Republican majority in Congress. I just don’t think a replacement for Platner is beating Collins
He should have never been chosen to run against Collins. Everyone looked past the Nazi tattoo, the sexist and racist comments, and the other sexual assault allegations and now here we are.