Graham Platner faces fresh controversy ahead of Maine Senate primary

For the second time this week, Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner is facing another major controversy just days ahead of the Maine primary he is poised to win. 

On Thursday, the New York Times reported allegations of Platner’s “unsettling” behavior toward women he dated, including one claim that he was physically abusive, which Platner denies.

According to the Times, Platner’s then-girlfriend, Lyndsey Fifield, said that while they were dating a decade ago, he “regularly grabbed her by the shoulders — sometimes hard enough to leave marks.” During one argument, he “twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom, and held the door closed.”

In an interview with MS Now after the Times report was published, Platner denied Fifield’s claims. “There are some allegations in this piece that I just want to be kind of unequivocal about, are simply not true,” he said. 

Platner, a political novice and oyster farmer, has also insisted that he did not know a chest tattoo he got as a Marine while drunk in 2007 is a widely recognized Nazi symbol. He has since had the tattoo covered up. But Fifield told the Times that Platner did know its significance, and that he even joked about it.

“Anything alleging physicality, anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was — these are the statements of someone who is politically motivated,” Platner said in the interview. 

In a statement to WTX US News, Platner said: “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. I take responsibility for all of that, and wish I had been better. Any characterization beyond that is false, and I believe, politically motivated. I’m not proud of who I was then, but I am proud of the work I’ve done since, and the movement we are building in Maine.” 

Fifield is a conservative who lives in Virginia and has worked for Republican campaigns and the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, according to publicly available bios. She said she dated Platner from 2013-2015, and told the Times that she has not been paid by a political campaign or entity since she worked briefly for Nikki Haley’s 2024 presidential campaign.

Platner also acknowledged he sent sexually explicit text messages to other women soon after he married his wife, Amy Gertner, in 2023. Gertner had disclosed the existence of the messages to the campaign soon after it launched. On Thursday, Platner told MS Now: “At the beginning of our marriage, I made mistakes, and Amy held me accountable for them. And we worked through them.”

Maine’s Senate race is one of the most closely watched in the country — it’s among a small number of toss-ups that could determine who controls the Senate after the midterm elections this fall. The Democratic candidate will face off in November against GOP Sen. Susan Collins, who has represented Maine in the Senate since the 1990s and has a history of outperforming other Republicans in the increasingly blue state.

Asked about the Times article, Collins told reporters on Friday: “The allegations in the latest story are troubling and I believe that Graham Platner has a lot of questions to answer.”

Platner faced scrutiny from some Democratic senators when he visited them in Washington, D.C., earlier this week. Vermont Sen. Peter Welch told WTX US News that during the meeting, he told Platner that “he has the obligation as a candidate to address the legitimate questions that Mainers have, the personal and political.”

Others have been standing by Platner. California Rep. Ro Khanna campaigned for the candidate at a get-out-the-vote rally in Maine Friday night. In a statement, Khanna said: “The behavior described in the New York Times story was wrong and toxic. Graham has acknowledged that and sought redemption. The people of Maine deserve a senator who is going to stand up to the billionaire class, against genocide, and for the working class.”

During Friday’s rally, Platner called the allegations against him “politically motivated” and “false,” and said Maine voters “have my back.”

Later on, Khanna told the audience that nobody should make excuses for Platner’s alleged behavior or attack the women who came forward, but added that Platner has taken accountability for his actions and “worked to be a better man.” 

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was one of the first to endorse Platner, even as Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer backed Gov. Janet Mills earlier in the primary. “All I can tell you is that the wealthiest people in this country have now reserved close to $100 million in TV ads in a small state like Maine. So, what are the billionaires worried about? Why are they spending so much money trying to defeat this guy? The answer is that he’s going to stand up to the oligarchs,” Sanders told reporters ahead of the meeting with Platner in D.C. on Tuesday. 

Mills dropped out of the race in April, but her name will remain on the ballot in Tuesday’s primary.

After the new allegations surfaced in the Times, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who chairs the Senate Democrats campaign arm, told reporters: “We’re still doing Maine.” Gillibrand helped lead the charge to drive then-Sen. Al Franken out of office in 2017 after misconduct allegations. 

Others say they won’t support him. “He lied to everybody. He said that there wasn’t any[thing] after his Nazi tattoo situation. And now there’s more and more of these things,” Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman told WTX US News. “So I assume, you know, it’s like they say — for every ranch you see in Texas, there’s 50 that you haven’t seen.”