Graham Platner drops out of Maine Senate race after sexual assault allegation

Maine's Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner has officially ended his campaign, giving the party until July 27 to find a replacement.

Why This Matters

This move is widely seen as the best option for the party. Platner's poll numbers collapsed following revelations of a serious sexual assault allegation. A different candidate will likely have a stronger chance of defeating incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

A Flawed Candidate

Platner was a deeply flawed candidate with no special qualifications for office and a long history of bizarre behavior, including:

• A Nazi tattoo (he claimed he did not know about it when he got it)
• Edgy Reddit posts
• Alcoholism
• Mistreatment of past girlfriends

While some of these issues could plausibly be excused individually, taken together they presented too many red flags.

Far-Left Platform

Beyond his personal issues, Platner ran on a far-left platform of dubious electoral viability. Democratic primary voters have shown willingness to select socialist and quasi-communist political figures, though this likely reflects anger at the party establishment rather than genuine enthusiasm for socialism. Whether statewide voters in a general election would embrace such a platform remains uncertain.

Platner did not identify as a democratic socialist, but his campaign centered on populist outrage at oligarchs and "the Epstein class." When initially scrutinized for alleged violence toward women, he claimed this was a concerted effort by the Epstein class to remove him. His platform reflected the progressive left's view that wealthy people are responsible for all societal misery and must be destroyed.

Irony and Insult

Ironically, this worldview mostly attracts support from affluent, highly educated people—not the working-class voters Platner claimed to represent. Working-class voters should be offended that far-left Democratic consultants—Morris Katz and Rebecca Katz appear to deserve most of the blame—decided their crusade against billionaires would serve as a policy agenda to appeal to working-class voters. All they needed was a rough-around-the-edges candidate with a deep voice and a penchant for violence.

Conclusion

Good riddance to Platner, and hopefully good riddance to the political operatives who see socialism as both the solution to the world's problems and the obvious winning campaign strategy.

This Week on Free Media and Freed Up

I spoke with Christian Britschgi about the Platner situation and a plausible conspiracy theory involving Sen. Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.).

Worth Watching

I finished Pluribus, one of the best television shows I've watched in years. Highly recommended!