The Ghost of Graham Platner Will Haunt Establishment Democrats

Democrats are in the process of exorcising Graham Platner from the party and the Maine Senate race, but Platner’s ghost could haunt Democrats for years to come.

Platner’s candidacy was an ambitious experiment led by progressive party outsiders, as self-proclaimed socialists racked up wins from California to New York and plenty of states in between. Primarily due to an intentional lack of proper vetting, the Platner experiment has failed. Lucky for the Democrat establishment, because a Platner win would have upended decades of party elite dogmas. It was not scandal but survival that caused establishment Democrats to flip on Platner.

Platner suspended his campaign operations on Wednesday, and formally withdrew on Friday afternoon in the wake of sexual assault allegations levied by a former girlfriend, Jenny Racicot.

Progressive strategist Dan Moraff was the “mad scientist” behind the Platner experiment, to borrow a phrase from the Wall Street Journal. And Moraff has a type, according to Matthew Yglesias of the New York Times: “Military veterans with blue-collar jobs and no electoral experience but with an interest in politics and (typically) labor unions.” Platner’s background as a Marine veteran, labor organizer, and mediocre oyster farmer, however, does not fully explain why he was plucked out of obscurity to run for the upper chamber. It was reverse-DEI in action: Platner is a straight, white male in his forties.

The band of progressive outsiders behind the Platner campaign intuited one of the conclusions from Democrats’ recently-released autopsy of the 2024 presidential election: Identity politics isn’t cutting it, especially with young men—white, black, and otherwise. Most party insiders largely wrote off the autopsy, including Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin, who released a heavily annotated version after a delay while claiming the report was not up to his standards. 

Nevertheless, establishment Democrats had a major incentive to malign the post-mortem because their power stems from a system built on the opposite assumptions.

In the wake of his failed 1984 campaign, Jesse Jackson started the Rainbow Coalition to court, activate, and recruit candidates from a more diverse Democrat Party. Over the next 15 years, the Democratic Party establishment would internalize and operationalize the Rainbow coalition’s governing strategy. The DNC has strict rules requiring diversity, and in some cases parity, in its leadership and membership.

To be a viable candidate in the Democrat party, you have to check at least one diversity box. Hillary Clinton checked the woman box. Pete Buttigieg checked the LGBT box. Joe Biden checked the ‘differently abled’ box—and even then he had to promise on the debate stage to choose a female running mate if he got the nomination.

Platner does not check any boxes, though he might have to check a different box on employment forms in the future.

In Platner, the rising socialist insurgency saw a candidate that could put the Democrat establishment on the run. For progressives, a Platner win in Maine would prove to party elites that hard-line progressives could not only win in districts where a “glass of water would win with a D next to its name,” as Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., once described AOC’s district in 2019, but unseat entrenched Republicans in toss-up races.

But for establishment Democrats, a Platner victory would prove they have repeatedly doubled down on a losing electoral strategy. The Maine oyster farmer’s implosion couldn’t have happened at a better time for establishment Democrats.

Prior to the sexual assault allegations that became his undoing, poll after poll had Platner beating Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a nearly three-decade Senate veteran, in November. 

In the June 9 primary, Platner captured 72.1% of the vote despite a number of scandals—from a Nazi tattoo on his chest to unhinged Reddit comments to a June 4 New York Times report in which several scorned lovers accused Platner of “unsettling” behavior. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s preferred candidate, sitting Gov. Janet Mills came in a distant second with less than 20% of the vote.

Political reality forced establishment Democrats to embrace Platner—any hope Democrats have to flip the Senate come November relies on a win in the Pine Tree State. Schumer, Martin, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and the DSCC pledged to support Platner’s campaign.

And then the Platner experiment met its violent end.

The sexual assault allegations prompted calls from establishment and progressive Democrats alike for Platner to drop out. Schumer, Gillibrand, and the DSCC vowed that Platner would be completely cut off.

The Democrat establishment is not out of the woods quite yet. Early polling indicates that Troy Jackson, a former state Senate president, progressive, Platner ally, and straight white male, would be a formidable candidate in November.

If Jackson gets the nod, it will be the first time Democrats nominate a straight white male for Collins’ seat since 2008–and only the second time this century.

If Jackson wins, it could prove the progressive insurgents right and establishment Democrats dead wrong.