Platner’s primary win leaves some Democratic women with a tough choice

The Democratic groups built to elect women have spent decades hoping to unseat Maine’s five-term Republican senator, Susan Collins. Now, they have a real shot — and to take it, they will have to help a man dogged by allegations about his treatment of women get elected to the U.S. Senate.

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The man is Graham Platner, the oysterman and political newcomer whose profile has rocketed to national attention, driven by the combination of his unorthodox background and magnetic stage presence.

That appeal, however, has been shadowed by his conduct toward women. Platner has been accused of writing derogatory posts on Reddit about women and victims of rape (he has apologized for those comments, and asked voters not to judge him by “the worst thing I said on the internet on my worst day 14 years ago”). He has admitted to sexting women other than his wife early in his marriage (which, he said, spurred him to seek counseling). And he has been accused by past girlfriends of demeaning them, including at least one accusation that he physically threatened her, which he has denied.

None of it has been enough to stop his campaign. On June 9, he won Maine’s Democratic primary in a landslide. 

That has left Democratic women in Maine with a choice that, for some, feels like a compromise no matter how they make it: line up behind a man accused of mistreating women, or withhold their support and risk handing a sixth term to the senator many blame for the loss of federal abortion rights.

“Susan Collins is someone who has talked for decades, you know, in her career in the Senate about reproductive rights, has been supported in the past by Planned Parenthood,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “And there is this deep sense of betrayal posed, post the Kavanaugh vote, that she did not stand up when it really mattered.”

Collins voted in 2018 to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Four years later, he was part of the conservative majority that overturned Roe v. Wade. That vote — a raw wound for many women in Maine and beyond — has become a centerpiece of Platner’s attack ads.

“Susan Collins told us she would protect Roe v. Wade,” a narrator says in one recent ad, which hit airwaves after Platner won Maine’s primary. “She was wrong. Now she won’t even admit she was wrong. 

But for some women, the messenger is not unburdened either. 

“Women have been put in a terrible position,” said Walsh. Women “who care both about reproductive freedom but also have strong beliefs about issues around sexual harassment, sexual violence, misogyny … the kind of behavior that we’ve been hearing about from him — it’s a terrible position women have been put in.”

Platner’s campaign did not respond to MS NOW’s request for comment for this article.

For some abortion rights advocates, Platner — who supports codifying abortion rights in federal law and covering reproductive care under Medicare for All — has become the best available vehicle for a closely divided Senate that many hope will expand abortion access nationally after Dobbs. Last week, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund endorsed him after supporting Maine Gov. Janet Mills earlier in the primary. At a news conference, the fund’s president and CEO, Alexis McGill Johnson, characterized Collins as “a fair-weather feminist,” and voiced confidence that Platner would be a strong supporter of abortion rights in the Senate.  

A person at Planned Parenthood Action Fund familiar with the endorsement process told MS NOW that it “felt important” for the organization to back Platner both on the week of the four-year anniversary of the Dobbs ruling and on the heels of Collins’ recent defense of her vote for Kavanaugh. The person, who was granted anonymity by MS NOW to speak freely about the endorsement process, added that Platner sat for an interview with officials at the national organization as well as the board of the local Planned Parenthood before PPAF decided to back him, and that those conversations convinced officials he was worthy of their endorsement.

“Susan Collins has caused a lot of damage,” the person said. “Women have died [due to abortion bans], are going to continue to die, and so for us, there’s just wasn’t an option to not be involved here.”

But Collins’ record was only part of it. Asked whether Platner’s controversies gave the group any pause, the staffer would only say that McGill Johnson emphasized in a direct conversation with Platner the “trust” women place in the organization, and that she asked “for some reassurance around certain things, and he gave us that.”

Not everyone is reassured.