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.”
Edit: holy shit, these comments are insane.
Regardless of what you believe with this, Platner likely cannot win anymore. He has a week to do the right thing and drop out before he’s fully locked in. If he actually gives any sort of a shit (and doesn’t just want power, like rapists seeking office tend to), he needs to drop out yesterday.
This is the nail in the coffin for his campaign. It’s not time to defend him no matter what, because there’s still a week where a new candidate can be put into place. Instead of being mad at people not wanting to vote for him, you should start vocally supporting another candidate.
Yeah, I generally agree with always believing a victim. But in this case, the person is clearly also a political operative. Waiting until just after the primary makes me immediately question her story. At the very least, it shows she cares much more about electing a Republican than she does about actually receiving justice. If she is a victim, she’s also an opportunist.
The party can still choose a new candidate if he steps down in the next week
If she were a political operative, she would have waited for the July 13 deadline to pass
No, don’t you see, she deleted every text message, Instagram DM, call record and any other corrobarating proof that could ever backup the story and never filed a police report for these awful crimes and didn’t say a word for the past year because she saw that no one took the first accuser seriously because she was a proud Republican and she actually totally, like, agrees with Platner’s policies and is totally a Democrat [citation needed - allegedly voted Trump last year], so she did the wise thing and waited until the 25th hour of what is arguably the determining election of giving Dems the control of senate to write a hit piece about something that happened 7 years ago and hand the election to the 29-year incumbent demonstrably guilty of much worse. It’s that simple.
She provided a ton of corroborating evidence. Stop using misinformation to create a strawman
She didn’t delete the text messages and emails.
very convenient excuses.
Her dog ate all the evidence of an allegation that at this time would ruin his political career, but somehow was not important enough to mention since 2021.
JFC, this is MAGA level delusion.
She deleted all the texts with him but not all the ones with other people about him.
She deleted the text messages directly with Platner, not with her friends or therapist.
Just to clarify, this is a different woman from the one whose actual job is “political operative”. This woman could also be timing this for political effect, but supporting Republican efforts isn’t her job like the main accuser in the NYT piece.
This woman also has text messages and emails to back up her claims.
No she doesn’t. She said she deleted them. From the Politico article:
The other messages are ambiguous (they do not mention rape), or are a few weeks old, between her and her therapist.
She deleted only the messages with Platner.
Those other messages are not as ambiguous as those of you who want to support this rapist want to believe or push here.
Yeah, this one is a credible accusation
Hopefully someone progressive can replace platner if this causes his campaign to pull out
It won’t be someone progressive. The people who would be choosing a last minute replacement are the people who didn’t want him to win the primary.
There’s no real viable replacement. Even if they choose someone who represented the policies the voters supported in him, which they won’t do, Platner is the only one with the justification of being chosen by voters to justify people who didn’t vote for him supporting him in the general. Anyone else is opening the door for finding some difference to now mean the candidate isn’t the choice of the party.
And that’s in the dreamland where the insiders choose a spare charismatic progressive outsider they had hanging around rather than someone who’s in their club.
Whether she has supporting evidence isn’t relevant to anything in the comment you replied to.
The parent comment claimed this woman is coming forward as a Republican hit piece. I’m just adding to the conversation by noting she has evidence.
She has evidence that she had some contact with Platner. But according to the narrative she describes, there couldn’t have been any text messages providing direct evidence of the assault. She’s saying that at the time, she sent messages to other people. But it’s not like Platner texted her a confession.
But come on, it’s 2026. You need to be a little more cynical, less naive, and have a properly calibrated bullshit detector. Did Platner assault her? Certainly possible. But it’s also sus as hell.
And yes, it clearly is meant to be politically motivated. She may be a Democrat, but as we’ve seen, plenty of Democrats hate progressive candidates. And the timing is damning. She may be a legitimate victim, but if so, she’s also cynically manipulating her rape for political points. She’s literally using her sexual assault as a political poker chip. You don’t perfectly time the allegation to have maximum political impact otherwise.
Idk, if I were assaulted by him I think I would wait to maximize damage, considering how difficult it is to get a conviction on SA charges.
How conspiracy minded do you have to be to think she texted her friend warning her about Platner years before his senate run in order to sabotage him now?
Why else would she say Platner assaulted her in this way other than he assaulted her?
Those messages don’t actually exist anymore. We have only her word.
I wouldn’t call this damning. People react to grief in complex ways. But it also means that you shouldn’t spread misinformation about there being text messages. Yes, she claims there were text messages, but ultimately it’s still just her word. These texts provide zero evidence, as they no longer exist.
She claims that a lot of evidence existed in the past, but that all of that evidence has been lost. Is that possible? Sure, that does happen in some cases of rape and assault. Some folks just want to move on. But it’s part of a larger picture that together is pretty damning:
She deleted all correspondence with Platner that could corroborate her claim.
She showed emails to Politico from her therapist, where she mentioned Platner and the alleged assault - but those emails and therapy sessions are recent.
There is a man, a later romantic partner, that the victim supposedly told her story to - yet he’s chosen to remain anonymous and Politico
There is a woman, a friend of the victim, who Politico says received messages from the victim saying to avoid Platner. Again, the person is anonymous.
So, all the supporting evidence is either deleted, not contemporary to the events, or from anonymous people that cannot be verified.
Because money and power are on the line.
This is a lie.
HBO Velma this is one Scoob could solve. If the timing alone doesn’t set off your bullshit detector I have a bridge to sell you.
I think youre going to find yourself on the wrong side of this one.
I wasn’t referring to the earlier case. The woman here is a political operative because her first priority is politics, not justice or closure. You don’t time your accusation to maximize political effects if you’re not a political operative. Even if she is telling the truth, she is a political operative first, and a victim second.
I don’t care if she’s cynical or unlikable or politically motivated if he in fact raped her. He shouldn’t have done that if he didn’t want people to call him a rapist at inconvenient times.
I do care about her motivations, because motivations tell you a lot. It tells you that her first priority is politics. It’s Schrodinger’s assault - simultaneously so traumatic as to warrant making an accusation years later, yet so mild that the need for justice was so low that she was able to keep it to herself until the most opportune moment. It’s suspicious as all Hell, and I wish folks like you just weren’t so credulous.
You do realize that people lie, right? And Democratic politicians are particularly vulnerable to false accusations of sexual assault, as the base has been conditioned (for good reason) to by default believe victims.
But you have to keep your brain on. Believing victims is a good general rule. But only a Sith deals in absolutes. You should believe victims, but you also shouldn’t be a naive fool. If all it takes for you to abandon a campaign is someone making a politically opportunistic assault allegation, then you will never see politicians you like elected.
Yes, as a general rule, false allegations are rare. But we’re talking about a heated Senate seat, with millions of dollars on the line, where a false accusation can do real damage in the time it takes for the truth to come out. Normally there isn’t a lot of motivation for people to make false assault allegations. But in cases like this, there’s a huge motivation to do so.
This is media literacy 101. When someone has a huge motivation to spread false allegations, you need to treat them skeptically, even if “believe the victim” is generally a good first approach.
My issue with your comment was:
If she’s telling the truth, I don’t care if she’s a political operative, because what she’s telling the truth about is being sexually assaulted by Platner. If you are using the timing as a reason to believe she is lying, then I understand that. But I can’t imagine caring about her motivation if she is telling the truth.
First, I’m not conceding that she’s telling the truth. I can imagine caring about her motivations, because in this case, she is both a sexual victim and a sexual abuser, or at least an abuse enabler.
If she is telling the truth, consider who you’re talking about here. You’re talking about a sexual assault victim that is actively trying to harm other sexual assault victims. She’s working to get a Republican elected to the Senate - the same Republican that played a role in getting Roe v. Wade overturned. You’re talking about someone that is both a victim and an abuser. Collins winning will be a massive detriment to every citizen of Maine that is a victim of assault or rape.
That’s why it matters. You don’t get to play “believe every victim” card when you yourself are actively trying to victimize people.
Its 100% credible. She’s got texts and e-mails with friends and a therapist from the time period.
Graham is done.
No. The therapist ones are recent. They have a few chat messages from friends, but only from people whose names Politico didn’t disclose. She explicitly said she deleted most of her texts.
I watched the interview and I didn’t make those conclusions. Its more than credible enough to just believe it. And I don’t know that the fine detail matters. Graham said there was no more coming out and this came out. He has categorically denied it, but that was before the interview. I’d be surprised if he hasn’t stepped down before the end of the night. It could be an outright lie (I dont think it is, I think its fully credible), and it won’t matter now.
Well I’m going off the actual text in the Politico and NYTimes articles. If you want to cite a video, can you provide a time stamp? I don’t have time to watch a 25 minute long video.
And the fine details do matter. Again, because we’re dealing with what has an extremely high probability of being a political hit piece.
And Graham saying nothing more is coming out isn’t damning at all. She herself claims Platner didn’t remember the event. Even if she’s telling the truth, Platner would have been completely honest when he said he didn’t think anything else was coming out. She’s claiming he was blackout drunk and had no memory of the event.
“TropicalDingDong sexually assaulted me five years ago and I had texts to prove it but I deleted them all. See, look at these emails I exchanged with my therapist last week about it. If you don’t believe me, just listen to my anonymous friends who I confided in at the time.”
See how credible that is?
They are allegations, but he probably did. But did you know it’s not illegal to run for senator when you have been convicted of a felony?
In a representative democracy, the rational way to go is to vote for the person who you think will vote on the same side as you on issues you care about. You’re not choosing a friend or someone you will interact with on a regular basis.
Republicans understood this a long time ago. Billionaires understand it too, that’s why they give money to candidates they think are more susceptible to return the favor.
Purity tests are something you have to put aside when your country is sliding into fascism… Otherwise you’re giving an advantage to the other side.
Naw you don’t have to vote for rapists.
So what’s the other option in this election?
You don’t have to worry about every single election. Do you even live in maine? Think longer term than what’s right in front of us. Run for office if you have similar politics. Get involved locally. Build parallel power and help the community. Idk but supporting a rapist is not required.
Susan Collins is awful but she’s a symptom. Electing a black water mercenary who raped someone isn’t the path to a better world lol
It’s not like he’s this perfect political animal that would have single handedly brought down the oligarchy, he’s just one guy. In America we get way too into individual politicians.
Are you saying the answer is to not vote? Honest question, I’m kinda dumb and not quite following what you’re trying to imply
This is going to be the legacy of Plantner’s campaign. Not that he was a fake-leftest, but that so many of his supporters turned out to be.
Sorry. I have a bullshit detector. She’s either not a victim, or at the very least, she cares far more about influencing politics than she does about seeking justice. It’s sus as hell. You’re incredibly naive.
We’ve done it, We’ve circled around to fake news.
This women has produced dated text messages discussing the assault prior to Planter’s campaign. That’s pretty solid this time. Plus the connection between these two can be corroborated. Additionally I’ve heard there are dated therapists notes, but I haven’t seen those.
The Epstein class will not be taken down by other rapists
Yes, you are spreading fake news.
Let’s actually be specific.
This is the only contemporary digital record alleged in any of the stories:
So, facebook messages, not text. And she didn’t discuss the assault at all, at least not beyond very general terms. And the people involved are anonymous. It seems she never explicitly said “he assaulted me” to her friends. She made vague allegations that could describe a lot of scenarios, some that would be disqualifying, some not.
Please provide a source, not just “I heard.” Because the Politico and NYTimes articles make zero mention of contemporary therapist notes. You are spreading misinformation. There are therapist notes, but they’re not contemporaneous.
They’re not anonymous to Politico, they would have spoken to them and verified their identities. They’re only anonymous in the story to protect them from harassment from creeps who think they’re part of a conspiracy.
Holy shit dude, those messages are not ambiguous at all. Stop supporting rapists. You sound a lot like a MAGA cultist
They are ambiguous! Holy shit, stop supporting political opportunists, you sound like a corporate Dem.
“ended up in a bad situation with him,”
“consensually careless”
“Doesn’t listen to you when drunk”
This could describe anything from a guy who puts an unwanted hand on someone’s shoulder to full on rape. That’s extremely ambiguous! No where does she allege a rape or assault explicitly. That doesn’t disprove the rape allegation, but it’s also hardly evidence for it.
It’s really not ambiguous at all since she told us what happened.
Even without context it’s not ambiguous at all if you’ve ever spoken with a woman.
You’ve done it, you’ve gone full MAGA. Rape supporting and everything
You’re a proper cunt if you’re calling someone who’s doubting the hyper convenient story of a probable political operative to “supporting rape”. You shouldn’t throw that kind of statement around lightly. EVERY REPUBLICAN SUPPORTS CHILD RAPE since they refuse to prosecute Epstein criminals.
Let’s say we grant you that he raped her.
This man was a blackwater merc and this is the line we draw? Nah fuck that, we were willing to swallow him being a bloodthirsty maniac but now that the victim is white it’s a problem?
With any luck this guy will bring the sheer, unhinged, ultra violence that seems to follow him directly into the capitol and honestly we can’t afford to purity test our way out of victory.
Go back to your office fed boy.