Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Former logger and onetime Maine Senate President Troy Jackson is on course to replace accused rapist Graham Platner as the Democratic Senate nominee following a series of party caucuses over the weekend. As results from the Pine Tree State’s 16 counties showed Jackson running away with the committed delegate count, would-be contenders Nirav Shah, former head of the state’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention; state Secretary of State Shenna Bellows; Maine Beer Co. founder Dan Kleban; and ex-congressional hopeful Jordan Wood dropped out one by one. “Today, I am stepping aside, and I am doing it for...

There’s a battle to shape the Democratic Party this fall, and two top Senate Democrats are taking different paths in their bids to put their mark on the process. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., endorsed Abdul El-Sayed in the duel for the Democratic Senate nomination in Michigan. It’s a break from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is backing Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich. The diverging endorsements are emblematic of the fight going on behind the scenes and publicly in the Democratic Party as the old guard fights to stand its ground, while a progressive surge threatens to completely overtake the...

Democratic Senate contenders are dramatically out-raising their Republican peers, according to Federal Election Commission data — with Georgia’s Jon Ossoff and James Talarico in Texas leading the pack. Eight of the top 10 Senate candidate fundraiser this year are Democrats, whose top contestants have raked in $574 million, compared to the Republicans’ $336 million, per the FEC. Incumbent Sen. Ossoff (D-Ga.) is the biggest fundraiser on both sides, having raked in a jaw-dropping $77 million as of June 30, and has a staggering $42.5 million in cash on hand. He’s raised nearly $98 million as a Senate candidate, including the...

Former state Senate President Troy Jackson is racking up support to become Maine’s next Democratic Senate nominee, with both his top opponents ending their campaigns on Sunday. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and physician Nirav Shah, a former top public health official in the state, both announced they would be leaving the race. Bellows made her announcement Sunday morning, while Shah exited the race Sunday evening after Democrats across the state selected delegates to next week’s state nominating convention. Shah threw his support behind Jackson. “To Maine Democrats: Susan Collins will not be defeated without a united Democratic Party....

r/tankiejerk: ForwardDiamond3484. Ana Kasparian is victim-blaming Graham Platner's accuser. July 8, 2026. https://www.tiktok.com/@destinydebates/video/7660271699652250893 https://www.reddit.com/r/tankiejerk/comments/1uqz3c9/ana_kasparian_is_victimblaming_graham_platners/

A driver was shot dead Monday while trying to mow down Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Maine, according to authorities. Graphic footage on social media shows a man lying by the side of the road near a car, with a bullet hole visible through the driver’s side of the front windshield following the incident in Biddeford just after 7:15 a.m., the Portland Press Herald reported. The unidentified driver reportedly accelerated at ICE agents at an intersection in the small town before the officers shot him dead, eyewitnesses said. Officers in green vests surrounded a car and drew their...

The Democratic Party is at war with itself — and in Maine, the fight has spilled into the open. Graham Platner, an alleged rapist with a Nazi tattoo on his chest, won the Democratic nomination for United States Senate last month, beating the candidate the party establishment had recruited by a commanding 53-point margin. For months, Republicans and others had warned that Platner was unfit for the job. The Democrats did not care. As soon as party leaders saw polling that suggested he could beat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November they embraced him, hosting him in Washington, DC, and...

Apple and Google spent months suppressing negative news stories about the scandal-plagued Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner prior to his recent downfall, according to a new study obtained by Fox News Digital. The Media Research Center (MRC), a conservative watchdog group, found that Apple News and Google News published zero stories between November of last year and May of this year about the various controversies that muddied Platner's Senate bid, including headlines about his Nazi tattoo and his offensive Reddit posts. The MRC study said the blackout in coverage began after a poll released in late October suggested Platner...

Kalshi‘s predictions are based on people betting on the outcome of a race, not on the opinions of voters in Maine. It’s just another way for money to influence our politics.Unfortunately CNN as well as CNBC recently made lucrative deals with Kalshi and are allowing it to influence their reporting. Guess it saves them he cost of polling regular Americans who don’t have the time or money to constantly bet on things.

Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) said he would work with anyone who wanted to fight against President Donald Trump when asked about Democrat Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, who’s embroiled in controversy amid allegations of adulterous behavior.

California Rep. Ro Khanna once again admitted that he believes the women who have accused Maine Democrat Graham Platner of being physically rough with or mistreating them — but is standing by him nonetheless. Khanna (D-Calif.), who was an early backer of Platner, contended that the oyster farmer had redemption and underscored his goal of ensuring Democrats flip Maine’s Senate seat. “I do believe those women. And I have said that his past conduct was shameful, and I totally condemned it,” Khanna told “Fox News Sunday.” “He did two, three tours of duty in Iraq. He came back with PTSD,”...

Morris Katz, the supposed wunderkind behind New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, is also the campaign strategist for Maine Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner. At present, Katz has failed to live up to his title. Instead, he is doing cleanup on Aisle 7 because he refused to strategize in order to get ahead of the self-inflicted landmines that have blown up all around his candidate. As RedState reported, the latest scandal involves Platner sexting with at least 12 women soon after he was married, and doing this through an app that has known associations with pedophilia and sex trafficking. hese...

The writing wasn’t just on the wall. It was on Graham Platner’s chest. This moment is so much bigger than the Maine Senate race. It is about a political ecosystem and echo chamber that ignored all the warning signs and elevated an alleged rapist. Now, both extremes of the political spectrum are saying credible rape allegations are acceptable if the perpetrator is anti-Israel enough. Enough. The political instincts of anyone who elevated and excused Platner are fatally flawed. It’s time we finally stop listening to them.

So who will vet the vetters?Certainly not Matthew Yglesias who had an opinion piece in the New York Times less than a month ago, June 17, in which he enthuses so much over the one who supposedly vetted Graham Platner, Daniel Moraff (pictured), that it comes off as The Adoration of the Moraff as you can read in "The Democrats Need Better Candidates. This Guy Knows How to Find Them."Love is in the air as Yglesias merrily gushes over Moraff, the one whom many/most Democrats are furious at for perhaps ruining their chances of taking the Senate in the midterm...

He was a fabrication from the start. The son of a wealthy lawyer presented as a working class hero. No one cared that it was a lie. No one cared that he was credibly accused of rape. Until they did.I’m going to veer from sports today to venture into politics. Maine politics. Democrat Party politics. And Graham Platner, the Democrat nominee for Senate in Maine who recently suspended his campaign after so much dirt came out on him that his numbers finally started dropping. Only when the polling dropped did the Democratic Party descend to say yeah you gotta go....

Maine Democrats announced it will hold its convention July 25 to pick a new nominee for US Senate to run in Graham Platner’s place in November — but some party members aren’t waiting until a new name emerges from the ashes of the accused rapist’s campaign. Prominent lefties in Congress are already raising money — claiming the fate of the entire party is at stake. “Our path to flipping the Senate runs directly through Maine. If we flip Maine, we flip the Senate,” Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) wrote in a desperate fundraising email Friday. “But if Susan Collins wins, Trump...

Maine Democrat Graham Platner on Friday formally withdrew from his US Senate bid in a letter to state elections officials that signed off with an F-bomb. Platner posted on X a picture of the letter, which did not share any immediate details about who he hoped would succeed him to face Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in November. The missive touted the 156,084 votes he had received in Maine’s Senate Democratic primary last month, suggesting that his more than 70-percentage-point win showed: “People are desperate for change.” “Mainers voted for a new kind of politics,” the letter read. “One that...

The Graham Platner scandal in Maine goes beyond the Nazi tattoo, the rape fantasies, the allegations of domestic abuse, and Jenny Racicot’s rape claim, which ended his campaign. Now, the Democratic Socialists of America are urging their candidates to never work with Morris Katz, Platner’s top aide, or his firm in future elections. Katz isn’t a DSA member, but the drama surrounding Graham Platner's inevitable downfall won’t end when he files his paperwork to quit before the July 13 deadline, something Katz says he will do despite delays on the matter (via The Intercept). Members of the Democratic Socialists of...

Graham Platner announced he is "suspending my campaign to be the next US Senator from Maine. Despite winning the Democratic primary last month with 150,000 votes--more than any other candidate in Maine's history--wealthy donors are demanding I step aside. The campaign of smears--that I am a Nazi, that I sent unsolicited photos of my penis to women, that I sexually abused other women--failed to deter voters from choosing me to be the Party's nominee. Now these potential donors are saying they won't provide any money for my campaign to continue to November. They will only donate if another person is...

Graham Platner formally drops out of Maine’s Senate race He announced he was leaving Wednesday. On Friday, he made it official. July 10, 2026 Graham Platner formally withdrew from the U.S. Senate race Friday, clearing the way for Democrats to choose a new nominee to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins this fall. The move was widely expected after Platner was accused of sexual assault in 2021 by a Maine woman, who detailed her experience in a story published by Politico on Monday. Platner has broadly denied the allegations, but he announced Wednesday that he was suspending his campaign because...