NYT Details 3 Ex-Girlfriends' Allegations Against Graham Platner as Maine Democrats Test 2028 Playbook
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Jun 9
NYT Details 3 Ex-Girlfriends' Allegations Against Graham Platner as Maine Democrats Test 2028 Playbook
3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jun 9
Summary
Three former girlfriends told the New York Times that Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner engaged in heavy drinking, infidelity and, in one case, physical intimidation, days before Democrats vote in a pivotal primary.
More than 2 dozen interviews and reviewed texts, chats and diary entries underpinned the report, though friends cited by one accuser could not corroborate the alleged physical incidents in real time.
Platner specifically denied knowing his chest tattoo was a Nazi symbol and denied any physical intimidation, while acknowledging he had been a flawed boyfriend and casting a key accuser as a conservative operative.
The allegations land after earlier controversies over roughly 2,000 Reddit comments, explicit messages confirmed by his wife, and Governor Janet Mills's exit from the race, which left Platner the presumptive Democratic nominee.
For Democrats, the Maine contest has become a proxy fight over whether outsider, populist candidates with personal baggage can still win a seat seen as central to retaking the Senate in 2026.