A Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, Graham Platner, is facing a widening crisis after a New York Times report described “unsettling” conduct with at least three girlfriends between 2013 and 2021. The allegations follow earlier controversy over a tattoo revea
For this week’s Maine Senate race, the decision isn’t just about who can win. It’s about what the public can’t un-know.
Democratic candidate Graham Platner—once pitched by supporters as a working-man alternative with a military past—has been hit by new claims that he behaved in “unsettling” ways with at least three girlfriends between 2013 and 2021. The allegations landed in a New York Times story that broke Thursday afternoon.
Platner’s campaign and allies have been bracing for fallout since October. when a Totenkopf tattoo was revealed—an image Platner has repeatedly denied knowing was a Nazi symbol. He told people he had no idea it was connected to Nazism. and he described dancing shirtless at a wedding in front of his Jewish family when he was 20 years old.
This latest controversy has also pulled in a fresh dispute over what voters can trust. The account includes claims of physical abuse. It also says Platner knew his “skull and bones” Totenkopf tattoo was tied to the Nazi symbol.
In the middle of that argument sits an uncomfortable timeline. Even after the sexting scandal broke. the writer behind this report says she initially expected she could hold her nose and vote for Platner—largely because she believed Senator Susan Collins’s record. including her vote for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. was “unforgivable.” But the tone shifts on Friday morning. after additional details surfaced and after Platner himself disputed what he said was coming.
Platner’s defense. as relayed in the piece. points to a pattern: he has framed negative coverage as something that only happens when you run against an entrenched political machine. The writer says Platner told Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren—both of whom have endorsed him—that as recently as Tuesday there were no more “muddy boots to drop. ” and that the “worst” of the rumors they might be hearing weren’t true. The piece says Platner then canceled the remainder of his Washington meetings and returned home to Sullivan. Maine. for damage control ahead of the New York Times story.
Even if readers discount everything in the New York Times account or distrust its accuracy, the report argues the dispute doesn’t end there: Platner’s own messages to Sanders and Warren are treated as a key part of why the credibility gap feels so sharp.
Questions about whether more material could emerge were also raised in an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on the night before. In that discussion. the writer says Hayes asked Platner whether there were other “texts. photos. floating around that will hurt the campaign. ” and whether he worried about it. Platner’s answer in the piece was blunt—“I’m not worried about it”—adding that whatever might be out there was “before I was in politics and a public figure.” The candidate also repeatedly described the negative stories as coming from “career politicians. ” while portraying his own path as “a journey of transformation.”.
The report doesn’t stop with the current New York Times allegations. It lays out prior controversies. including that Platner’s sexting—according to the writer. with at least some behavior described as tied to a post-marriage period—was revealed by his wife to the campaign. The piece says the sexting bothered her because it reflected more recent behavior rather than what she calls his “post-combat meltdown.” It describes the sexting as not “normal old sexting. ” but rather involving use of a semi-anonymous app called Kik. The writer says Platner’s Kik photo showed him shirtless and in a towel. and that his profile was deleted last week.
It adds that when Hayes asked whether all of his sext recipients were adults, Platner answered “Yes,” while the writer emphasizes he has “no way to know.” The report also says Platner told Hayes that sexting “stopped when it started,” calling the phrasing unsettling.
Still, the most harrowing claims in the New York Times story are the ones attributed to Lyndsey Fifield. The piece describes Fifield alleging that Platner grabbed her so hard he left marks. twisted her arm behind her back during a fight. threw her into a bedroom. and held the door closed until. she says. she got “calm.” The report also says the story includes claims about sexualized threats and demeaning language.
The writer addresses why she finds the allegations difficult to dismiss even if someone rejects Fifield’s political background as a conservative GOP operative. She says the worst claims—physical abuse and the Nazi-symbol denial—come from that GOP operative. yet she says she believes Fifield and does not believe Platner.
Other women described in the New York Times piece add to the picture as well. The report says Jenny Racicot. a Democrat who dated Platner. told the Times that when she saw the old comments he made online. she felt they “makes sense” because she believed the person did not “respect women.” Racicot is described as saying she was not physically abusive. but as relating an episode in which he came to her house drunk after she had asked him not to. The piece says Racicot called what happened “reckless” and “unsettling.”.
The report also says Racicot posted on a Facebook page—“Are we dating the same guy?”—after a woman posted a photo with Platner and said he popped up on a different dating app. According to the piece, Racicot posted confirming he was married and warned other women against him. It adds that Racicot’s warnings were posted in November 2024, a year after he married Amy Gertner.
A third woman in the Times story is described as unnamed, quoted saying she felt like she was “collateral damage to the world that is his.”
The report treats Fifield’s account as particularly damning. It says Fifield claims Platner referred to women as “hatchet wounds. ” referring to genitalia as she believes. and that he told her: “If anybody ever broke in here. I would rape them. ” then added “it would not be in ‘a sexual way. not in a gay way…. I would rape them to show them that I’m dominant.”.
The story then widens beyond Maine to describe an internal fight inside parts of the progressive movement over what kind of male candidate can be defended—and what kinds of accusations must be treated as disqualifying.
The report says it was “almost more” appalling to it when some left-leaning figures defended Platner after the sexting story broke. It cites Substacker Ken Klippenstein. who it says defended Platner as a “manly man. ” contrasting him with “smoothgroins.” The report says Klippenstein named California Governor Gavin Newsom. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker. and former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg as examples. It says Klippenstein wrote that when Washington acts like it’s disqualifying. the real message is that ordinary people aren’t fit for higher office.
The piece quotes what it calls a particularly violent sentence in Klippenstein’s writing about Mills. saying she got “her clock cleaned by Platner so badly she’s probably still shitting pieces of her dentures out.” It also says Klippenstein captioned a side-by-side photo of Collins and Maine Governor Janet Mills. writing that “Susan Collins and Janet Mills would never be embroiled in a sexting scandal (too much integrity?).”.
Another defense is attributed to Jacobin’s David Sirota. whose quote the report says argued that political-media elites are trying to define a politician’s “character” by manners. civility. family life. and “anything else that has no material impact on voters.” The writer asks whether “manly populism” matters when allegations include assaulting and demeaning women.
The report also says that on the day before the New York Times story broke. author Sebastian Junger wrote “I just had breakfast with Graham Platner” on his Substack. The piece says Junger described Platner as representing a “new political creature. ” “the working-man liberal. ” and praised both the candidate and himself. saying they were “the only people [in their swanky restaurant] who had been blown up in a war zone.” It adds Junger wrote that Platner was “the only Democratic candidate or congressman I wouldn’t want to mess with. ” while saying Republicans had at least “half a dozen guys who could put me in a headlock.”.
The writer says some defenses came from producer Marshall Herskovitz, whose Bluesky posts the report says were removed after backlash. The writer says she copied one line in which Herskovitz wrote that the reaction to the Times accusations “reveals why the Democratic Party has lost men. ” and that Platner was not accused of rape. assault. or harassment—only being a bad boyfriend.
Here the report pushes back directly: it says Fifield accused Platner of assault, and that the writer believes Herskovitz’s framing ignored the nature of the accusations.
It also mentions DropSite writer Ryan Grim, who the report says took the lead in itemizing Fifield’s GOP background. The report frames that as an effort to undermine the credibility of Fifield and says it makes the writer distrust Grim’s judgment.
For the record, the report says Fifield has complaints about how the Times story was written, saying it left out corroborating details, which she posted on X.
All of it feeds into the race itself. The report states that it remains “critical” for Democrats to defeat Susan Collins because it’s necessary for Democrats “taking the Senate.” It describes Chuck Schumer as a “feckless Democratic leader” who pushed a reluctant Janet Mills into the race and then embraced Platner after the sexting scandal. It also says Schumer “hailed Collins” for her 10. 000th Senate vote. describing it as the vote to enhance ICE and Border Patrol funding.
The piece argues establishment Democrats have not invested enough in new candidate development or state party infrastructure. and it cites an example in Minnesota where Schumer is reportedly encouraging big Democratic donors to support corporate centrist Representative Angie Craig against progressive Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan.
The writer’s bottom line is stark. She says there is “no guarantee Platner can” win. She says polls show the race between him and Collins has already tightened. And she warns that if more allegations emerge—she cites Platner’s own admission that there could be more “muddy boots to drop. ” referencing his comments to Chris Hayes—voters could be confronted with even deeper questions about character. trust. and credibility.
Finally. the report returns to what it calls a central emotional injury across the political spectrum: it argues that. too often. only “white-male identity politics” is treated as acceptable. and that both on the right and on the left. that idea leads people to minimize allegations about women and others.
Whatever a reader thinks of how the claims should be weighed, the stakes on Tuesday are immediate. In a race already tightening against Susan Collins, the conflict now isn’t only about policy or ideology. It is about whether Platner’s denials and reassurances—told to Sanders and Warren. answered on camera to Chris Hayes—can survive the credibility problems created by what the New York Times story says happened years before and what other women say they experienced.
Mainers, the report urges, will be forced to vote their conscience.
Graham Platner Maine Senate race Susan Collins New York Times sexting scandal Totenkopf tattoo Bernie Sanders Elizabeth Warren Chris Hayes Janet Mills Chuck Schumer political endorsements allegations of abuse