Democrat blames party establishment in suspension announcement
Graham Platner, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, suspended his campaign Wednesday after a woman who dated him alleged that he drunkenly forced her to have sex despite her telling him to stop, an allegation he denies. The suspension effectively ends a rapid political rise that began 323 days earlier.
According to Politico, the announcement was recorded Wednesday afternoon outside Platner’s home in Maine in the company of aides including Ben Chin and Morris Katz, a 27-year-old adviser to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Politico reported that several of Platner’s closest advisers pleaded with him to strike a conciliatory tone, but he bucked their advice and made it a condition of dropping out that he get free rein to assail establishment Democrats and blame them for the end of his rapid political rise.
Platner’s campaign had begun with a glossy horizontal video showing him farming oysters, chopping wood, and gruffly talking about hardscrabble folk in Maine. On Wednesday, the video announcing his suspension was vertical, according to Politico.