Graham Platner, the man Maine Democrats chose to take on Sen. Susan Collins, suspended his Senate campaign last week in the face of sexual assault allegations, and now the party faces a familiar, self-inflicted crisis: how to replace a nominee without looking like the fix is in.
The Maine Democratic Party held an emergency meeting Wednesday and voted to organize a nominating convention to pick a replacement. But the process has already devolved into finger-pointing, with the party accusing Platner's team of trying to rig the outcome and Platner's allies accusing Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of conspiring "behind closed doors" to shut out the party's left wing.
The parallels to 2024 are not subtle. Democrats who lived through the chaotic Biden-to-Harris handoff, a swap that produced no competitive process, no public vote, and a nominee who lost decisively in half a dozen swing states, are openly warning the Maine party not to repeat the mistake. Andrew Bates, a former Biden White House spokesman, called the Platner succession battle a "good analog" to what national Democrats endured two years ago, the Washington Examiner reported.
Platner was a lightly vetted political outsider who won the Democratic primary despite a trail of controversy. He had a tattoo on his chest described as Nazi-linked and spent months explaining away controversial social media posts. None of that stopped the party from rallying behind him.
Then, on Monday, sexual assault allegations emerged. Platner denied them. But the exodus of support was immediate. By Wednesday night, he announced his campaign's suspension, though not before demanding a role in selecting his own replacement.
Jim Kessler, executive vice president of policy at the center-left Third Way and a former Schumer adviser, did not hold back about Platner or the people who elevated him:
"These people who promoted this con artist for their own personal and political gain should not be part of the process to repair the damage they have caused. And that is both for moral reasons and practical reasons."
Kessler went further, arguing that Platner's involvement in the replacement process would be toxic to any successor.
"No one associated with this disaster can win the majority of votes in Maine. The nominee to beat Collins must be someone who can credibly say that they were not a part of this. His endorsement and seal of approval is poison."
The Washington Free Beacon documented how the New York Times and its columnists had repeatedly championed Platner, downplaying or dismissing misconduct allegations against him. NYT columnist Michelle Goldberg publicly admitted she "deeply regrets" a column defending the candidate, conceding, "If anything, he seems to be significantly worse" than his online critics had portrayed. One of Platner's ex-girlfriends accused the Times of failing to contact three of five witnesses she had provided alleging abuse.
That media failure deserves its own reckoning. A major newspaper boosted a candidate who turned out to carry disqualifying baggage, and only acknowledged the problem after the damage was done. It is a pattern that should concern anyone who depends on legacy outlets for honest vetting of candidates.
When Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race after a poor debate performance against Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris had roughly 100 days to pick up the mantle. There was no competitive process. No convention vote that mattered. Voters were handed a nominee and told to get on board.
Harris struggled to separate herself from the Biden administration's record and lost decisively. Jill Biden's book tour earlier this year reopened those wounds. And Harris is reportedly weighing another run in 2028.
Bates, who has been candid about the 2024 failures, argued that Maine Democrats must not repeat the coronation model. His advice was blunt:
"My top recommendation looking back at 2024 would be that there does need to be some kind of competitive process and the ability for everyday people to at least weigh in publicly."
He added a warning that should echo well beyond Maine:
"A lot of voters did not care for the idea that someone had been chosen for them, even if it was not logistically possible to do more primaries."
The Democratic Party has faced erosion among key voter groups in competitive Senate races across the country. Maine's implosion only deepens the problem.
Maine Democrats have until the end of the month to select a new candidate, with a ballot deadline that required Platner to formally step aside. Several names have surfaced. Nirav Shah, a former health official who placed second in last month's gubernatorial primary, has expressed interest. Former state Sen. Troy Jackson, described as a progressive favorite, performed better than either Platner or Mills in a survey of Maine voters that tested six possible candidates. No pollster, sample size, or methodology was disclosed for that survey.
AP News reported that the party must finalize a replacement by July 27 under state law, and that Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows is also among those being discussed. Dan Kleban, co-founder of Maine Beer Company and a former Senate candidate, announced via Substack that he is ready to step in, the Washington Times reported.
Shah warned that the process must at minimum include a televised debate. He told the Boston Globe that a failure to run an open process would undermine whoever emerges:
"That's critical, because if the process is anything but, if it is a handing of the torch, then the eventual nominee will not have generated enough trust and buy-in from the base, let alone the broader party, to be able to prosecute the case against Sen. Collins."
Collins, a five-term incumbent and the most formidable Republican in Maine politics, is the opponent any replacement must face. Democrats have described Maine as a must-win state for retaking the Senate. But four months is not much time to introduce a brand-new candidate to voters, especially one chosen under a cloud.
The Maine Democratic Party accused Platner's team of attempting to "put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like." On Wednesday, the party reiterated its claim that Platner was trying to "manipulate" the process. As an olive branch, the party promised to include Platner's supporters in the convention planning.
Platner's campaign fired back, accusing Maine officials of conspiring with Schumer "behind closed doors" to cut out the party's left wing. His team began soliciting feedback from volunteers and supporters. Flash polling reportedly conducted by Platner's camp found he would perform worse than alternatives after the allegations emerged, a finding attributed to Politico.
Bates acknowledged Schumer's role in the mess. The minority leader's preferred candidate in the primary had been Gov. Janet Mills, who failed to gain traction with voters. Bates described Schumer's recruitment of Mills as an "error" and said she "was not the kind of person that Mainers are interested in representing them," adding that "sometimes heavy-handedness can backfire."
That is a notable admission from a Democratic insider, that the party's own Washington leadership misread Maine voters and backed a candidate the electorate did not want. It is the same institutional arrogance that produced the Biden-to-Harris handoff and the Platner nomination itself.
Scandals derailing Democratic campaigns are not unique to Maine. A Kentucky Democrat dropped out of a primary earlier this year after security footage caught him taking a voter's mail, another case of a party failing to vet its own candidates before the public did it for them.
While Democrats sort through their wreckage, Republicans are already moving. Newsmax reported that Pine Tree Results, a Republican-aligned super PAC, is planning an $8 million preemptive ad campaign to define whatever Democratic replacement emerges before that candidate can introduce themselves to voters. The PAC has raised $10.5 million this cycle, giving the GOP significant resources to exploit the chaos.
President Trump, commenting on Platner's situation, said simply: "He's in a bind. But, should they be able to do it? Well I guess he's gonna lose. I'd imagine he's going to lose."
The broader Senate political landscape is already volatile enough without Maine Democrats handing Republicans a free opening. But that is precisely what has happened.
What Maine Democrats face now is not just a logistical headache. It is a credibility problem. They nominated a candidate with a Nazi-linked tattoo, a history of controversial social media posts, and, as it turned out, sexual assault allegations that drove him from the race within days of surfacing. The national media that boosted him failed to do basic reporting. The party apparatus that could have flagged the risks either missed them or looked the other way.
Now the same party asks voters to trust it with a do-over. The same Schumer operation that picked the wrong horse in the primary wants influence over the replacement. The same consulting class that promoted Platner wants a seat at the table.
Bates, to his credit, acknowledged that Platner "is not in a position to be making demands." But he also defended the idea that Platner's supporters deserve a voice, a reasonable point that nonetheless underscores how tangled the situation has become.
Maine voter Paul Attardo, quoted by AP News, captured the frustration plainly: "We rally behind somebody, and not unlike the Biden administration, when everybody rallied behind Joe Biden, at the eleventh hour that failed. I sort of feel we're in a similar boat."
Democrats have until the end of July and four months until November. They face a five-term incumbent in Collins, an $8 million Republican ad blitz, and a base that watched the 2024 coronation fail on the biggest stage in American politics. Whether they learned anything from it will be answered in Maine.
When the people picking your candidates keep picking the wrong ones, the problem is not the candidates. It is the people doing the picking.