An allegation of rape derailed the Maine Democrat’s Senate campaign this week, leading the first-time candidate to announce he was dropping out
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NEED TO KNOW
- President Donald Trump offered a qualified defense of disgraced Maine Democrat Graham Platner after an allegation of rape derailed his Senate campaign this week
- Platner, an oyster farmer and military veteran, announced he was dropping out of the race on Wednesday, July 8, following allegations by 41-year-old Maine resident Jenny Racicot
- The president himself has faced numerous allegations of sexual assault and mistreatment of women for decades
President Donald Trump offered a qualified defense of disgraced Maine Democrat Graham Platner after an allegation of rape derailed his Senate campaign this week.
Platner, an oyster farmer and military veteran, announced he was dropping out of the race on Wednesday, July 8, following a Politico report on Monday, July 6, that detailed damning claims from 41-year-old Maine resident Jenny Racicot.
Racicot, who said she had an on-and-off-again relationship with Platner for more than two years, alleged Platner entered her home uninvited and intoxicated one night in late 2021 and forced her to have sex with him against her objections.
Platner denied the claims repeatedly, including in an 11-minute video on Wednesday night, but said he would drop out ahead of a July 13 deadline to allow Democrats to nominate a new candidate to challenge longtime Maine Sen. Susan Collins in what is projected to be among the most crucial Senate races of the 2026 midterms.
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As Trump flew back from a NATO summit in Turkey on Wednesday, he was asked by a reporter for his perspective on Platner and the allegations.
“So he won the primary,” Trump said. “And it’s really a question of whether or not you believe the woman. A lot of people say big falsehoods.”
“He’s in a bind, he’s in a bind,” Trump added, noting “I’d imagine he’s going to lose” against Collins, a Republican, if he stayed in the race.
The president has faced numerous allegations of sexual assault and mistreatment of women for decades, dating back to his first marriage to Ivana Trump, the mother of his three eldest children. She alleged during divorce proceedings in 1989 that her husband raped her, but later recanted the allegation.
More recently, writer E. Jean Carroll, 82, sued Trump over a 1996 incident in a New York City luxury department store. Carroll claimed in her 2019 book What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal that the then-New York businessman and socialite raped her.
In 2023, a civil court jury in New York found Trump liable for sexual abuse — a lesser offense than rape — and for defaming her, ordering him to pay her north of $5 million in damages.
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Trump long denied Carroll’s claims of assault, saying in a 2019 interview: “No. 1: She’s not my type” and, further, that he had “never met this person in my life.”
On June 29, the Supreme Court upheld the verdict and on Wednesday a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge rejected Trump’s lawyers’ request to delay the $5.8 million payment further while they pursue an appeal.
Trump’s lawyers immediately appealed that decision, according to The Associated Press, but were denied an emergency request to block payment. The New York judge who presided over the civil case is now clear to release the money, which has been kept in escrow and grown with interest, per the AP.
While he has not commented publicly on the most recent developments in the Carroll case, Trump opined on the Platner allegations on Wednesday.
He argued “it’s very interesting” that when earlier allegations of abusive behavior by Platner were levied by Lyndsey Fifeld, an ex-partner who now works as a Republican political operative, in a June report by The New York Times, “nobody believed her.”
“When a Republican woman came out with the same charge, nobody believed her,” Trump said. “When this woman [Racicot] came out, everybody believed her.”
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Former top Obama political strategist David Axelrod responded to Trump’s comments in a post on X, writing that the president was “not the character witness you’d want” if you were Platner.
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Platner, who overwhelmingly won the June 9 Democratic Senate primary after successfully pushing incumbent Maine Gov. Janet Mills out of the race, said he was “suspending campaign operations” in his video statement on Wednesday.
“The process needs to assure that what comes next is reflective of the Mainers who on June 9 turned out and showed that they are desperate for a different kind of politics,” Platner said after denying the allegations as “all false” and insisting “the things that have been claimed did not happen.”
My name might be on the ballot right now, but that ballot line belongs to the people of Maine. pic.twitter.com/RKVyLU76tm
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 9, 2026
Platner, 41, was seeking to unseat Collins, 73, who had long beaten back challengers as a Republican in a state that consistently votes for Democrats in presidential elections.
Maine Democrats are now scrambling to pick a replacement. Possible replacements openly discussing their candidacy include two Democratic gubernatorial primary runner-ups: former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention head Dr. Nirav Shah and former Maine state Senate President Troy Jackson, a progressive who was previously endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Progressive state Rep. Valli Geiger, Maine Beer Company co-founder and former Senate candidate Dan Kleban, and Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows — a former ACLU executive who lost to Collins in a landslide in 2014 — have also publicly expressed interest.
Notable Mainers who have withdrawn from consideration include Grey’s Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey and Boston College history professor Heather Cox Richardson, who authors one of the most popular political Substack newsletters.
“It’s flattering, and I don’t take it lightly. I love my home state of Maine. I care deeply about the people who live there and, like so many Americans, I’m concerned about the direction our country is heading,” Dempsey wrote in an op-ed published by the Portland Press Herald on Wednesday. “I want someone who leads with empathy. Someone who listens before speaking, who has the courage to work with people they disagree with and who understands that public office isn’t about power. It’s about service.”
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.
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