Graham Platner won the Democratic primary for the Senate, despite troubling allegations by women who questioned his treatment of them. When a woman he had dated said last Monday that he had forced her to have sex without her consent, it was all over for Platner. He was accused of having raped the girlfriend. He denied it, but the air was out of his balloon.
Tonight Platner denied the allegations, blamed the “establishment” for derailing his campaign, but announced that he was suspending his campaign.
The Maine Democratic Party will hold a convention and pick a new candidate.
This is the best outcome. In retrospect, the most damning evidence against Platner came from his wife, who told a campaign leader that her husband had been sexting with other women after they were married. Why would he do that? That’s a career destroyer.
But the worst instance of piling on was recorded by The Washington Post.
Last night at 10:20 pm, the Post published a vile, disgusting story about Platner that never should have seen the light of day, in my view..
In that article, Lyndsey Fifield, the conservative woman who worked for the Heritage Foundation and was part of a group supporting Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, made a lewd accusation against Platner that could not be verified or corroborated. She said that when she had sex with Platner, he took off his condom without her consent, even though he knew she did not use birth control. Apparently this happened more than once. She dated him over a three-year period and said he “repeatedly” engaged in sex without a condom.
It started like this:
“An ex-girlfriend of embattled Senate candidate Graham Platner told The Washington Post that he repeatedly removed protection without her consent when they were having sex.
“Lyndsey Fifield, who said she dated Platner from 2013 to 2015 in D.C. and has previously accused him of physical abuse, said that she told Platner on multiple occasions that he had to wear condoms during sex because she was not on birth control.
“He would pull condoms off,” she said in an interview. “He would do it in a sneaky way. He wouldn’t tell me.”
“In a statement in response to questions about Fifield’s allegation, Platner’s campaign called the claim “categorically false and politically motivated.” The statement noted Fifield supported now-Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh when he was accused of sexual assault before his confirmation, an allegation he denied.”
Most of the comments–at least the first 100 or so–attacked Fifield’s credibility and motives. One asked why she didn’t use birth control. Another asked why she continued to have intercourse with him.
My reaction was that the charges should never have been published because a) there was no way to verify her allegations; b) how he had sex with a female friend is irrelevant to his character or fitness for office. Having unprotected sex is dangerous, because it might produce an unwanted pregnancy. But, to my knowledge, it is not criminal.
Rape and sexual assault are criminal acts. They do reflect on one’s fitness for office. We should have learned from Trump’s adjudicated behavior not to trust men who abuse women.
The story was disgusting. The Washington Post should be ashamed to have published this slime.
I’m glad Platner stepped aside. I’m sorry all the allegations about him did not come out long ago.
I hope the Maine Democratic Party picks a strong candidate who can unite the party and beat Susan Collins.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Graham Platner destroyed any credibility as a candidate with his ego driven statement tonight. He showed no interest in the party defeating Collins as if he is the only one with a legitimate voice for Maine. Rather he spent most of the time blaming everyone but himself for his fall from grace. Poor Graham!! I am not inclined to pay much attention to Fifield or the Washington Post, but Platner has accumulated enough baggage to make his candidacy problematic at the least.
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I’d be happy to see Troy Jackson replace Platner. He already has an exploratory committee website up. https://jacksonformaine.com/
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Troy Jackson Sounds good.
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Beware Nirav Shah. He’s a big fan of privatization. https://mainemorningstar.com/2026/05/21/democratic-candidates-for-governor-trade-barbs-over-school-choice-debate/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
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David,
Thanks for that information. Maine is a state with cohesive communities. It doesn’t need “choice.”
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I agree with you that the best outcome is Platner stepping down.
Lyndsey Fifield is suffering from the boy who cried wolf syndrome. She is angry because she expected people to react to the accusations she made about Graham Platner with disgust, instead of having them respect Fifield’s previous position that a man credibly accused of sexual assault should be rewarded with a lifetime Supreme Court seat that empowered him to force unwilling women to follow his orders.
It wasn’t very long after Fifield escaped from the abusive relationship she had with Platner that she co-founded “Ladies for Kavanaugh” with a woman from the Independent Women’s Forum – the group that boasted about writing Susan Collins’ talking points when she supported Kavanaugh – and Fifield advocated for rewarding a man credibly accused of sexual assault with a lifetime Supreme Court seat.
In Kavanaugh’s case, Fifield was advocating for empowering a man who also testified under oath that his documented public trashing of a teenage girl named Renate in his high school yearbook was NOT a public trashing but a sign of affection – based on Kavanaugh’s absurd but very troubling argument that both he and Renate agree that she did not (would not?) have sex with him. In other words, Fifield did more than “not believe women” – Fifield endorsed Kavanaugh despite the very unsettling questions raised by Kavanaugh’s argument that his publicly trashing a teenage girl’s reputation to imply she will sleep with anyone is a sign of affection BECAUSE Kavanaugh knew that the nasty things he was implying about that teenager were false!
I can’t imagine how painful it its for Fifield to experience some of the nasty attacks on her, but she should be reminded whenever she expresses her feelings of being victimized that she herself apparently endorsed Kavanaugh’s Orwellian position that it’s a sign of affection for someone to besmirch her reputation publicly IF they and she both know that what is being implied to trash her is false!
I think anyone making such an argument is trying to justify some very bad behavior, but Fifield thinks he belongs on the Supreme Court. And so does Susan Collins.
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