In group chats of progressive activists and political operatives concerned with the state of the Senate race in Maine Wednesday morning, a link to an anonymous Google Doc was making the rounds. It disavowed Graham Platner, the disgraced Democratic nominee whose campaign was throttled by a rape accusation on Monday, and called to replace him with Troy Jackson, a recent gubernatorial contender the document deemed “the one candidate who can hold Platner’s coalition together.”
There are five days left before the deadline for Platner to get off the general election ballot in the Maine Senate race, and there is no clear alternative if he chooses to step aside. His campaign’s swift downfall has presented Democrats and his primary supporters with several bad options: The party establishment could pick a candidate and inflame an already frustrated base that scoffed at its efforts to anoint Gov. Janet Mills as the nominee, or it could bend to Platner’s demands and let him influence the selection of his successor.
In either case, a base already exhausted by months of Platner scandals is at risk of fracturing and failing to consolidate behind a potential replacement — and Democrats are at risk of once again losing a key seat they need to pick up for control of the Senate to Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
With so much blame and anger to go around, the fear of poisoning the selection process was on display in the anonymity of the Google Doc pushing Jackson, the Bernie Sanders-endorsed third-placecandidate in Maine’s Democratic gubernatorial primary. Jackson, who has already been discussed in national progressive circles as a possible ideological successor to Platner, was firstto file paperwork on Tuesday to take the candidate’s place. But the anonymous document, shared with The Intercept by a source who said its origin was unclear, was quick to distance him from Platner.
“In a state where Democrats have hemorrhaged rural support and where Collins has consistently overperformed, Platner has attempted to sell himself as the populist solution. Jackson doesn’t need to sell; his career tells the story,” it says, citing a claim from centrist writer Matthew Yglesias that Jackson is more genuine than Platner.
There are still Platner supporters — and one progressive political operative close to the Platner campaign, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized by his employer to discuss the race publicly, said they were divided in their reactions to the rape allegation against their once-powerful candidate.
“There are some people who just immediately decided that they believed they believed his accuser and who feel very betrayed and are just like, ‘Fuck this guy, now we’re screwed,’” the operative said. “And then there are some people who don’t believe her, and there are some people who think that he can continue to run, and some people who think he should run as an independent.”
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Platner has not withdrawn, though he is reportedly expected to do so as early as Wednesday. If he does drop out, it’s not entirely clear how the Maine Democratic Party plans to nominate a new candidate, either. Maine Democrats have said their state party committee, which has more than 100 members, will not choose the nominee. But the party has publicly feuded with Platner’s campaign, releasing a statement and an unusual video post on Tuesday saying that the campaign had tried “to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like,” after people close to Platner’s campaign told reporters that he would only drop out if he could ensure that the new candidate shared his ideological and policy stances.
In a mass text sent out on Wednesday, Platner’s campaign manager Ben Chin claimed that the campaign had been told it would have no role in helping to select a new candidate and that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had sent staffers “to plan a potential nominating process behind closed doors.”
A DSCC spokesperson called the assertion “false” in a statement to The Intercept. “The Maine Democratic Party has made it clear that they are working to put forth an open process to select a nominee. Graham Platner — who was credibly accused of rape — needs to drop out immediately so that Maine Democrats can begin the process of fielding a new candidate and focus on defeating Susan Collins,” the spokesperson wrote.
Platner’s campaign, which has denied the rape accusation, did not immediately respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.
Other potential picks being floated to replace Platner include Jackson’s Democratic gubernatorial opponents Dr. Nirav Shah, the former director of the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who came in second in the final round of ranked-choice voting in the June primary, and Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who ranked fourth.
A source familiar with the matter told The Intercept that outgoing Rep. Jared Golden, a Blue Dog Democrat who represents Maine’s Second Congressional District is not seeking reelection, had been getting calls about running, but on Tuesday night a spokesperson said he had removed his name from consideration.
The progressive political operative warned against the idea that a middle-of-the-road candidate like Golden would be the safest bet to replace Platner against Collins. A “generic Democrat,” the operative said, would find themselves up against a deceptively formidable incumbent, with little chance of mustering the energy that made Platner, for a time, such a threat to Collins.
“People always underestimate Susan Collins, and that’s why I think a lot of us in the progressive movement are saying that you have to give a reason for people to turn out, because turnout in the midterms is everything,” the operative said. “I think a lot of that’s coming from the national Democrats and national pundits who have no friggin’ clue about — I don’t know if I’d say popular — but about how entrenched she is in Maine politics.”
“People always underestimate Susan Collins. … You have to give a reason for people to turn out, because turnout in the midterms is everything.”
Shah said Tuesday that he had few details about what the state Democratic party plans to do.
“This should be a process that is open, robust, and transparent, not something where the torch is handed from one person to another, because that will undermine faith in that nominee,” Shah told The Intercept. He said his campaign has not yet decided if he’ll file paperwork to enter the race, and that while he had received calls from hundreds of supporters urging him to jump in, he had not heard from any national Democrats.
Jackson, for his part, now has to toe the line between seizing the progressive mantle and being publicly tied to a candidate who lost massive public trust. In a statement Tuesday, he called the allegations against Platner “serious, credible, and deserving of full accountability,” and called on Platner to step down for the sake of the movement that supported him. Jackson did not address his own intention to run, but his spokesperson told The Intercept that he was the person to beat Collins.
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“Working Mainers need someone who will take on the wealthy and powerful and give them a voice in D.C. It is clear that Troy Jackson is that person,” said Christine Kirby, the spokesperson. “Since the recent news broke, Troy has been flooded with calls to run for U.S. Senate. He is clearly the strongest option to take on Susan Collins and has consistently won in deep-red Northern Maine.”
The document making the case in Jackson’s favor emphasized his appeal among working-class voters, whom Platner had tried to cultivate but lagged with compared to Collins in recent polling.
It will all be moot if Platner doesn’t withdraw by Monday; in that case, the party won’t be able to select a new nominee. In a statement released on Wednesday, the Maine Democratic Party’s executive director Devon Murphy-Anderson sought to thread the needle between castigating Platner and courting his voters.
“While we may be frustrated with Graham Platner’s continued efforts to manipulate this process, we are so thankful for his supporters and all of their efforts to defeat Susan Collins,” Murphy-Anderson wrote. “They are a vital part of our Party and deserve to participate in an open process to select Platner’s replacement.”
A new candidate has to be submitted to the Maine secretary of state by July 27 to qualify for the ballot.
In Shah’s view, anyone picked by Platner would be dragged down by his baggage, while anyone picked by the state party might not have buy-in from the base that Platner helped activate.
“If there is a torch-passing or anointments,” Shah said, “whoever that nominee is will be hobbled out of the gate.”
The post “Hobbled Out of the Gate”: Platner Allegations Set Off Scramble to Find a New Maine Senate Nominee appeared first on The Intercept.
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