It turns out, unsurprisingly, that train wreck of a human being Graham Platner cheated on his wife. The cheating apparently involved some texting with other women. This is the weird part:
After Platner launched his campaign last August before a Labor Day rally with Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, his team reportedly began opposition research on their candidate to uncover any information that could be revealed during his bid for Senate. At that time, his wife, Amy Gertner, shared with the campaign’s then political director, Genevieve McDonald, that she had found sexually explicit messages her husband had sent other women on his phone in the spring of 2025. She and Platner had begun marriage counseling, and the campaign’s aides ultimately decided the messages were a private matter.
In a statement released by Platner’s campaign, Gertner said she was “deeply hurt” by the news that McDonald had shared details of Platner’s text messages with reporters.
[…]
“The United States Senate is not a training ground for redemption. It is a place for proven leaders with moral clarity and integrity,” McDonald told the New York Times. McDonald was one of three campaign officials who resigned after details of Platner’s tattoo and controversial social media posts were revealed in October.
McDonald, who was Platner’s political director for what I’m sure was a tumultuous few weeks, also piled on when the news about Platner’s tattoo came out. I’m beginning to think that I wouldn’t hire her as a political director, because if she really wanted to sink Platner’s battleship, she should have dropped this little piece of oppo research shortly after the tattoo stuff came out. Instead, waiting until the primary is basically a done deal for Platner is either dumb, an attempt to help Collins, or both.
Since Platner and his wife made up, this really shouldn’t be that big a deal. I always thought marital infidelity is bad but not disqualifying, especially if the couple got through it and stayed married. That said, the salacious details of the texts are going to come out, and I’m sure they’ll be bad. He also used a platform called “kik” which is being described as a platform for abuse of minors because it’s anonymous and pedophiles use anonymous platforms, but it sounds like his wife knows who he had the affair with. (I have to say that I’m very interested, putting it mildly, to see what Platner will say in response to Republicans getting all verklempt about marital infidelity and also insinuations of pedophilia.)
Anyway, I’ve written here earlier that he’s a symptom of a deeper problem in the Democratic Party. Scott Lemieux differs:
Lemieux’ position in the second tweet above is a bit of a straw man: as someone who thinks that Schumer deserves a lot of blame for how the Maine Senate primary shook out, I sure don’t think there’s some “highly-centralized top-down operation” responsible for this disaster. I think it’s a lot simpler: Janet Mills was the obvious candidate to run for Senate. She could have bowed out long before those other candidates had to make up their mind for which office to run for. Part of the reason she didn’t bow out was (as it was widely reported) Schumer’s attempts to recruit her. If Schumer thought Mills was the right candidate, all the other potential candidates knew that they wouldn’t be able to raise any real money for the primary since the DSCC money (very little as it turned out) would be going to her. So, it’s logical that the younger group of potential candidates all decided to run for governor. They didn’t want to challenge the big name in Maine politics, who was probably going to be backed by Schumer.
If I could read their minds, what a tale their thoughts would tell, but I’m not saying I’m a mindreader. I’ve just observed politics in small-ish states before. I stand by my take that Platner is a flawed candidate who’s the product of a number of issues with the Democratic Party, plus he can give a good speech and seems authentic.
Anyway, tune in soon for what I’m sure will be more unpleasant stories about Platner’s unstable life.
