Graham Platner isn't going anywhere in Maine Senate race after latest controversy

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks at a "Fighting Oligarchy" tour stop held by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in Orono, Maine. Platner the presumptive Democratic nominee and will face incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) for Maine's U.S. Senate seat in the general election. Joe Raedle/Getty Images hide caption

With only a few days until the primary election and voting already underway, the top Democratic candidate for Senate in Maine, Graham Platner, is answering if he should remain in the race after numerous concerns over his past have come to light.

Platner has maintained frontrunner status to unseat longtime Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins. It's an election Democrats almost need to win if they want to take control of the Senate come November. But after The New York Times published a story where previous romantic partners called Platner's behavior "toxic" and described him as someone who "does not respect women," some wonder if his candidacy is kaput.

"The whole point of these stories is to make sure we're not talking about healthcare, it's to make sure we're not talking about raising taxes on the rich, it's to make sure we're not talking about getting money out of politics," he told Maine Public in an interview on Friday.

He also said no one from the National Democratic Party has told him to drop out of the race.

The New York Times article hasn't been the only thorn in the campaign's side though. When the combat veteran turned oyster farmer announced he was running for Senate, Platner's tattoo of a Nazi-symbol came to light. Platner has said many times that he didn't know the skull and crossbones resembled a Nazi SS sign and that he was drunk with his fellow Marines when he got the tattoo in 2007. Platner's old and since deleted Reddit comments that were racist and others made blaming sexual assault vicitms also came to light.

Then, the Wall Street Journal reported Platner, who is married, exchanged sexually explicit messages with several women early into the campaign in 2025. His wife, Amy Gertner, has since defended her husband and their marriage.

The New York Times story followed. In that story, one of Platner's ex-partners, Lyndsey Fifield, who has worked for conservative causes and on Republican campaigns, described instances and recounted a time when Platner locked her in a room and said she would remain there until she was "calm." Platner told Maine Public' that the allegations were "just not true." He also discredited the status of his relationship with Fifield, stating they never dated and she was "someone I had a casual relationship with." Instead of seeing the article as damaging to his campaign, he took it as a sign they're doing something right.