A Daily Mail/JL Partners poll shows voters are twice as likely to turn against Democrats as toward them because of disgraced Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner's cascade of scandals, a finding that threatens the party's midterm calculus well beyond one state.
Twenty-three percent of respondents said Platner's behavior made them less likely to support Democratic candidates in the 2026 midterms. Just 12 percent said it made them more likely. Another 37 percent said it made no difference, and 28 percent were unsure. The two-to-one gap between those repelled and those drawn closer is the kind of number party strategists cannot wave away, and it arrived at the worst possible moment for a Democratic caucus that needs to net four Senate seats to reclaim the chamber.
Platner, who won his party's nomination to challenge Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, withdrew from the race in early July after a sexual assault allegation from ex-girlfriend Jenny Racicot collapsed what was already a campaign battered by months of prior scandals. His exit forced Maine Democrats into a frantic replacement process that landed on former state Senate President Troy Jackson, and started a 101-day sprint to Election Day with a brand-new, largely untested nominee.
Racicot, 41, told Politico that Platner showed up uninvited at her rural Maine home in 2021 after she had told him not to come over. She said he appeared "blackout drunk" and let himself into her unlocked house. She described him "grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful."
In her own words, as reported by the New York Post:
"I had been telling him these words, like: 'No, don't.' And, the look on his face and realizing what was happening, I just realized that, like, I am in a situation where there's no consent here."
Racicot said she and Platner had been in an on-and-off relationship for more than two years before the alleged incident. She later sat down with CNN alongside another ex-girlfriend, Lindsey Fifield, to discuss their experiences with Platner.
Platner denied the allegations. In an 11-minute video posted to social media in early July, he cited "the immense amount of weight" bearing down on him as his reason for stepping aside. His withdrawal letter to the Maine secretary of state struck a different tone. "My name may have been on the ballot, but that ballot line belongs to the people of Maine," the Washington Examiner reported him writing.
But the sexual assault allegation was only the final blow. The scandals had been accumulating since last fall, when the revelation of a Nazi Totenkopf tattoo, a skull-and-crossbones symbol associated with the SS, first surfaced. Platner has since covered the tattoo, but the damage to his credibility was immediate and lasting.
During the campaign, controversial Reddit posts emerged. Platner himself described them to The Advocate as containing "homophobic slurs, anti-LGBTQ+ jokes and sexually explicit stories denigrating gay men." More recently, reports surfaced that he had texted other women sexually while married and maintained a shirtless profile on the messaging app Kik.
Each revelation peeled away another layer of support. Democrats who had initially rallied behind Platner's candidacy began distancing themselves well before Racicot's account went public.
When it did, the retreat became a rout. California Rep. Ro Khanna posted on X:
"I've been very clear that sexual assault or violence against women is a red line. These allegations are very serious and credible. Graham Platner should drop out from the race. I am withdrawing my endorsement."
Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego followed, calling the allegations "troubling and deeply serious" and rescinding his own endorsement. National Democratic campaign groups went further, stating flatly that they would not invest money in the Maine Senate race as long as Platner remained the nominee. The National Review reported that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had already announced it would withhold spending in Maine if Platner stayed on the ticket.
Platner formally submitted his withdrawal to Maine's secretary of state before a July 13 deadline, clearing the way for the party to pick a replacement. Under state law, Maine Democrats had until July 27 to name a new nominee through a convention of roughly 600 delegates, AP News reported.
The party floated several names: Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, epidemiologist Nirav Shah, and former congressional candidate Jordan Wood. They settled on Troy Jackson, the former Maine Senate president.
Maine Democratic Party Chairman Charlie Dingman tried to project confidence. "While these circumstances are unprecedented and the challenge is enormous, your state party is ready and capable of rising to this challenge," he said. But readiness and results are different things, and the scramble to replace Platner exposed just how thin the Democratic bench in Maine really is.
Jackson now faces Collins with 101 days, no primary campaign infrastructure of his own, and a predecessor whose scandals have become a national story. Platner himself seemed to acknowledge the broader damage even as he exited, telling Breitbart News: "People in D.C. need to stay in D.C. Decisions should not be made by people in places of political power."
The Daily Mail/JL Partners poll suggests the fallout is not confined to one Senate race. The 23-to-12 split among voters nationally, nearly two to one saying Platner's conduct makes them less likely to back Democrats, signals a brand problem, not just a candidate problem.
Democrats needed Maine. It was supposed to be one of their best pickup opportunities against a vulnerable Republican incumbent. Instead, the party spent weeks managing a nominee who carried a Nazi tattoo, posted homophobic content online, sexted women outside his marriage, and now stands accused of sexual assault, all while prominent Democrats like Khanna and Gallego had already lent him their names.
The question of how Platner survived a vetting process long enough to secure the nomination has not been answered. National Democratic leadership has backed away from the race, but no one has explained how a candidate with a Totenkopf tattoo and a trail of online misconduct made it through the primary in the first place.
The episode arrives as several high-profile Democrats, including Gavin Newsom, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Kamala Harris, and Khanna himself, are sizing up 2028 presidential runs. None of them wants Platner's name attached to the party heading into that cycle. But the poll numbers suggest the attachment has already formed in voters' minds.
Sen. John Fetterman offered his own blunt assessment of the situation, arguing that the Democrats who elevated Platner in the first place should stay out of the process of choosing his successor. That kind of intra-party friction does not help a party trying to project unity heading into November.
The 37 percent of poll respondents who said the Platner saga made no difference to their vote may simply have already made up their minds. But the 23 percent who said it pushed them away from Democrats represent a concrete, measurable cost, and the party has no one to blame but itself.
Platner was not some unknown figure who slipped through a crowded field unnoticed. He won the nomination. He collected endorsements from sitting members of Congress. He drew national attention and national money. And every one of the scandals that eventually sank him, the tattoo, the Reddit posts, the sexting, the Kik profile, predated the sexual assault allegation that finally ended his campaign.
Democrats had months of warning signs. They chose to look past them. Voters, it turns out, did not.