By A new POLITICO report has pushed Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner’s already embattled campaign into a deeper crisis, with a former girlfriend accusing him of forcing her to have sex against her will nearly five years ago.
Platner, an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran and oysterman who sports a Nazi tattoo and who won last month’s Democratic primary, is running against Republican Sen. Susan Collins in one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country. He has denied the allegation, calling it false and politically motivated.
The accusation, reported by POLITICO after interviews with 41-year-old Maine resident Jenny Racicot, comes after months of controversy surrounding Platner’s past conduct, online activity, and political associations. What began as a populist progressive campaign against Collins has increasingly become a test of whether national Democrats are willing to stand behind a nominee carrying a long trail of personal and political baggage.
Racicot told POLITICO that she and Platner had an on-and-off relationship for more than two years after meeting on Bumble in 2019. She said the two had previously had consensual relations, but alleged that one night in late 2021 was not consensual.
According to Racicot, she texted Platner that evening and told him not to come to her rural home because she was not in the mood for company. Later that night, she said, she heard him on the stairs and realized he had entered the unlocked house uninvited while deeply intoxicated.
Racicot told POLITICO that Platner got on top of her on the couch and continued grabbing her despite her repeated protests. She said she smelled alcohol on his breath and believed he was nearly blackout drunk.
“I remember him grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me,” she said. “I remember the specific moment where I thought to myself, like, ‘This is no longer my choice.’”
Racicot said she tried to separate herself by telling Platner she needed to leave the room. He followed her into the bedroom, she said, where he had sex with her against her will. She also told POLITICO that he ejaculated inside her despite her telling him not to, at a time when she was not using birth control.
The next morning, Racicot said she pushed Platner away when he tried to put his arm around her. She asked whether he remembered what had happened. According to Racicot, he said he did not. She told him to leave and never contact her again.
Several weeks later, after confirming she was not pregnant, Racicot said she sent Platner a private Instagram message stating that the encounter was not consensual and that she did not want to hear from him again. She later deleted her texts and social media messages with him and has been unable to recover the Instagram exchange.
Breaking and entering followed by a credible rape allegation is how I read this https://t.co/ncR1ccr99i
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) July 6, 2026
Racicot then revealed why so many liberal men get away with sexual assault: she considered going to police but did not file a report because of shock, confusion, discomfort discussing the matter with authorities, and fear of retaliation. She initially confided only in her therapist.
“One of the reasons I didn’t come forward sooner was, the huge moral conflict that I had between supporting his politics, but not supporting him as a person,” she said. “I just want the truth out there. I just want people to have a whole scope of who he is as a person.”
POLITICO reported that Racicot shared emails with her therapist in which she referenced discussing the “sa/rape” with media on condition of anonymity. A man she began dating in 2022 told POLITICO that Racicot confided details of the alleged incident to him in 2023, and his recollection matched what she told the outlet. Racicot also provided 2023 Facebook messages in which she warned an acquaintance against getting involved with Platner, describing him as “consensually careless” and saying he “doesn’t listen to you when drunk.”
Platner denied the allegation.
“These allegations are troubling, serious, and false. Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically untrue,” he said in a statement.
His campaign went further, accusing political opponents of coordinating the story.
“These allegations are very serious and Graham vigorously denies them. They are also coached and coordinated by out of state establishment operatives. For a year, opponents of this campaign have thrown everything they can at Graham –– calling him a Nazi, a war criminal, and a communist. None of it has been true and this is no different. It is not a coincidence that this story comes a week before the ballot deadline, just as the previous false allegations came a week before the primary. Graham began this campaign to fight for a Maine where everyone is treated with dignity and where Mainers are put first, and no amount of desperate smears will stop this movement from seeing that vision through.”
Democrats have previously defended Platner when previous accusations of assault arose:
FLASHBACK: Ro Khanna, did Graham Platner finally cross a "red line" for you or do you still endorse him?pic.twitter.com/xTE4S6IsF3 https://t.co/hn4RMiFRnz
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) July 6, 2026
Senator Elizabeth Warren went as far as to say that Platner was her kind fo man.
😬😬😬 https://t.co/C5JfK8C9V9 pic.twitter.com/Rrvu5r5YIB
— Magills (@magills_) July 6, 2026
But the POLITICO report did not arrive in isolation. It landed on a campaign that has spent months dealing with questions about Platner’s judgment, temperament, and past conduct.
In June, New Conservative Post reported that Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., had escalated his criticism of Platner after reports surfaced that the Maine Democrat had used the messaging app Kik to exchange sexually explicit messages with multiple women while married. Fetterman urged Maine Democrats to take another look at Gov. Janet Mills, who had suspended her Senate campaign but remained on the primary ballot at the time.
“I think what’s time is is for Maine voters to take a look at the sitting governor, an honorable woman, and that is a committed Democrat that’s already won statewide,” Fetterman told CNN’s Manu Raju.
The Kik controversy raised additional concerns because the platform allows users to communicate through usernames rather than publicly shared phone numbers or email addresses. According to prior reporting, CNN verified the existence of a Kik account under the username “phustle0331” that appeared connected to Platner.
NEW: It’s real. Here is Graham Platner’s active profile on Kik, a “predators paradise” app known as a hotbed for child pornography, kidnapping, and sexual abuse.
Full story @realDailyWire from @TimRiceDC: https://t.co/8lpCwfo5ic pic.twitter.com/8yQqADkX7l
— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) May 30, 2026
Fetterman did not mince words.
“Oh, phustle,” he said. “What kind of a creep? What kind of a creeper has been on … a platform like Kik, and send a dozen explicit kinds of messages and who knows what else?”
The Pennsylvania senator also connected the controversy to Platner’s earlier tattoo scandal.
“What kind of a creeper has been on a platform like Kik,” Fetterman said in another exchange. “All I’m saying, it’s like, when I was growing up, if someone had a clear Nazi tattoo on them, you probably could conclude that they are a Nazi sympathizer.”
That tattoo controversy began after a resurfaced video appeared to show a skull-and-crossbones image on Platner’s chest resembling the Nazi-era Totenkopf symbol. Platner said he got the tattoo while serving overseas and did not understand its meaning at the time. He later covered it.
“I am not a secret Nazi,” Platner told Pod Save America host Tommy Vietor, insisting the tattoo was a drunken mistake from his Marine days in Croatia. “We all got these terrifying-looking skull and crossbones,” he said. “I was very inebriated.”
Platner also said his later military and security work showed that the tattoo had not been treated as evidence of extremism.
“At no point did anybody ever once say, ‘Hey, you’re a Nazi,’” he said. “It never came up until opposition research started shopping the idea.”
But the tattoo was only one part of the controversy. Platner also apologized for years-old Reddit posts that included offensive remarks about Black people and sexual assault victims. In one reported comment, he suggested sexual assault victims “take some responsibility for themselves and not get so f–ked up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to.”
“For those of you who have read these things and been offended, have read these things and seen someone that you don’t recognize, I am deeply sorry,” he said in an earlier video statement.
Additional reporting revealed that Platner, posting under the handle “P-Hustle,” had been active in the Socialist Rifle Association community and discussed firearms training. In one June 2020 post, he described the group’s activities.
“All we do is lots of range days, firearms education classes, and developing mutual aid networks in our community,” Platner wrote.
“Just put on a defensive handgun course two weekends ago, and we do monthly ‘introduction to firearms’ courses for new members, as well as more advanced classes for experienced members.” He added that the group benefited from “a significant amount of combat veterans and firearms instructors who have put together a solid curriculum to build proficiency amongst our membership.”
Another NCP story noted that Platner once wrote that “an armed working class is a requirement for economic justice” and advised that anyone who “expect[s] to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle” should “do some reading of history.”
Platner later confirmed authoring those comments but tried to distance himself from them.
“As I told CNN, I was fucking around on the internet at a time when I felt lost and very disillusioned with our government who sent me overseas to watch my friends die,” he said. “I made dumb jokes and picked fights. But of course I’m not a socialist. I’m a small business owner, a Marine Corps veteran, and a retired shitposter.”
Platner has repeatedly linked some of his past behavior to a difficult period involving PTSD, alcohol use, and disillusionment after military service. He has also said he has changed.
“Throughout this campaign, I’ve been open about what was a very dark period of my life where I struggled with undiagnosed PTSD, too often self-medicated with alcohol, and was a far from perfect boyfriend,” Platner said in a prior statement. “I take responsibility for all of that, and wish I had been better.”
“Any characterization beyond that is false, and I believe, politically motivated,” he added.
Fetterman previously warned that the drip of controversies would put Democrats who endorsed Platner in an increasingly uncomfortable position.
“No surprise,” Fetterman said after earlier allegations surfaced. “The interesting part will be how those who endorsed him will respond to this.”
That question is now sharper. Platner’s campaign has survived previous stories by arguing that Republicans and establishment Democrats were trying to destroy an outsider candidacy. But POLITICO’s new report is not about an old tattoo, an online alias, deleted Reddit comments, or radical political associations. It is about a named woman accusing the Democratic nominee of sexual assault.
Racicot said Platner’s public denials of physical misconduct toward women troubled her.
“I know that he is capable of putting his hands on women,” she said. “So I don’t believe that to be the truth.”
For Democrats, the political danger is obvious. Collins is one of the party’s top targets, and Maine is central to the battle for Senate control. Platner was supposed to give progressives a working-class challenger with national appeal. Instead, his campaign is now consumed by questions about whether Democratic leaders ignored warning signs because they wanted a stronger ideological contrast with Collins.
It’s look like he might drop out:
Literally the only part of the video that matters: https://t.co/nOHI9jw1Uo pic.twitter.com/732JhipghG
— Jarvis (@jarvis_best) July 6, 2026
The POLITICO report ensures those questions will not disappear. It also turns Platner’s race from a standard battleground contest into a test of how much controversy national Democrats are willing to tolerate from one of their own nominees while asking voters to trust their judgment on character.
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