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As Democrats scrambled to abandon embattled candidate Graham Platner, after a rape allegation against him torpedoed his insurgent campaign, one progressive lawmaker said it “was a very easy call” to never back him in the first place.
Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., had no endorsement to rescind, having been among a small handful of Democrats who publicly warned against Platner amid growing controversies, even as much of the party continued embracing him.
“I’m relieved. I’m sure Mainers are relieved. He disqualified himself,” Dean told Fox News Digital in an interview after Platner announced his intent to drop out of Maine’s Senate race. He later officially dropped out Friday evening.
“Suspending his campaign, he took no accounting for himself,” Dean said, referring to Platner’s 11-minute exit video, in which he fiercely denied the allegations and blamed the Democratic establishment for forcing him from the race.
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“That’s not the kind of person we want as a senator,” she continued. “I don’t care if you’re a Republican or a Democrat.”
Dean’s comments echoed a viral CNN interview in early June, when she described the rapidly accumulating controversies surrounding Platner as “distressing” and argued he had already “disqualified himself.”
Her warning came a month before a 41-year-old Maine resident, Jenny Racicot, went public with allegations that Platner, while intoxicated, forced her to have non-consensual sex in 2021. Platner has repeatedly denied her accusation, which was first reported by Politico.
At the time Dean spoke out publicly, Platner was the overwhelming favorite for the Democratic nomination. Few Democrats had publicly broken with him despite a growing list of scandals, including a Nazi-linked tattoo, offensive Reddit posts, infidelity and allegations of misconduct in prior relationships, including an account of physical abuse from Lyndsey Fifield, who dated Platner between 2013 and 2015.
Even Democrats who broke with Platner, including Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., drew fierce backlash from supporters who argued they were jeopardizing the party’s effort to unseat incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
“I said in my mind he had disqualified himself in at least two ways. One was the choice to have a Nazi emblem tattooed to his body. And the other was, of course, the credible allegations of his abuse of women,” Dean told Fox News Digital. “So, to me, it was a very easy call. I wasn’t trying to weigh in. I was asked by a CNN reporter and I just said he has disqualified himself. Not a tough call.”
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Still, many Democrats continued to defend Platner despite the mounting controversies.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., a Platner supporter, said the allegations from ex-girlfriends “seem like a lot of nothing” in an interview with NOTUS, while suggesting that Fifield’s background in Republican politics gave her account a partisan taint.
Other loyal Platner supporters, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., argued that voters should focus on policy issues rather than personal scandal, while appearing to dismiss alleged misconduct.
“I think it’s important for us to focus on the issues facing working families a little bit more than Graham Platner’s marriage,” Sanders told reporters in June in remarks obtained by NBC.
Asked whether she thought Democrats waited too long to denounce Platner, Dean largely declined to weigh in.
“I don’t have a judgment on that,” she told Fox News Digital. “They had to do it in their own way. I did it in my way.”
“Simply…because I was asked,” the Pennsylvania Democrat continued. “I just called it as I saw it. It was not a tough call. The timeline for anybody else, I have no judgment.”
Collins, who is seeking a sixth Senate term, is widely viewed as the GOP’s most vulnerable incumbent, making Maine one of Democrats’ best pickup opportunities — a political calculus Dean said did not justify backing Platner.
“I didn’t want to fall into the trap of contorting myself in order to support a candidate who had succeeded in a primary,” Dean told Fox News Digital. “Democrats are better than that. We have values that we live by.”
“When we get it wrong, we need to simply say that,” she continued.
Some Democrats have admitted fault in the days after the Platner campaign’s implosion.
“I got the Platner call wrong, obviously,” Khanna, one of Platner’s top allies, told Politico’s Playbook, adding the candidate’s unraveling “doesn’t negate the progressive movement.”
Platner is expected to officially file paperwork withdrawing from the race on Monday — the last day he can do so to allow Democrats to replace him on the ballot. Now, Democrats are working furiously to create a selection process to choose Platner’s replacement.
Whoever Democrats nominate will face an immediate barrage of GOP spending. Collins’ allies have already pledged $8 million in negative advertising against the new nominee.
Fox News Digital reached out to Platner for comment.
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