Graham Platner has thrown in the towel—well, almost.
On July 8, amid mounting pressure from local and national Democrats, the winner of Maine’s Democratic Senate primary released a video denying the latest sexual assault allegations against him; several minutes in, he announced he was suspending campaign operations.
Maine’s secretary of state still awaits the paperwork finalizing his withdrawal before a July 13 deadline.
As that clock ticks down, Democrats from across the state are scrambling to replace him before a separate deadline on July 27.
The succession will be worked out at a nominating convention.
The winner will have just a few months to make their case before facing Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in November.
The leading contenders include former state senator Troy Jackson, COVID-19-era Maine health official Dr. Nirav Shah, and Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows.
Those are just a few of the names at play, which have ranged from write-in candidate Andrea LaFlamme to actor Matthew Dempsey, best known for playing the character nicknamed “McDreamy” on Grey’s Anatomy (Dempsey has announced he will not run for the Senate.)
Top Democrats in Maine and across the country will be paying close attention. So will grassroots Platner backers now contemplating a different ticket come November.
“The stakes are huge because the Democrats are counting on defeating Susan Collins in order to be able to take back the Senate,” David Schultz, a political scientist at Hamline University, told The Epoch Times.
James Melcher, a political scientist at the University of Maine at Farmington, advised The Epoch Times to “watch for how fair Platner supporters think this process is as it plays out.”
“Many of them have a deep suspicion of political and party elites,” he added.
Jackson, the president of Maine’s state senate between 2018 and 2024, entered the fray a month after losing the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.
Melcher noted that Jackson was “who Platner ranked first for governor,” suggesting he could garner support from that wing.
Although Platner and Jackson campaigned alongside each other just weeks ago, Jackson was among the Platner allies who called on the candidate to drop out after his former girlfriend accused him of rape.
Shah, another 2026 gubernatorial hopeful, led the COVID-19 response effort in Maine as the director of the state’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention. He went on to serve in the federal CDC under President Joe Biden.
He kicked off his Senate run with a July 9 rally.
—Nathan Worcester
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—Stacy Robinson
