Mainers Donate to and Rally With Platner After Reporting on Past Relationships

Since The New York Times on Thursday published reporting about some of US Senate candidate Graham Platner's past relationships—including allegations of physical aggression that the Democrat denied—Mainers have continued to rally with and donate to the political newcomer's disruptive campaign, which has focused on promoting working-class priorities and defeating the oligarchy.

Maine's primary is on Tuesday, but Platner has been the presumptive Democratic nominee to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November since Gov. Janet Mills suspended her campaign over a month ago, citing a lack of financial resources.

In the wake of the Times reporting, Platner "raised more money than on any day since Gov. Mills' withdrawal from the race," according to his campaign. Specifically, as of 7:00 pm ET Friday, the 41-year-old oyster farmer and combat veteran had collected "over $200,000, from over 5,000 donors, with an average contribution of $40."

A Graham for Maine spokesperson said in a statement that "the people of Maine know what's on the ballot Tuesday: not Graham Platner's past, but whether their voice in the Senate works for them—or billionaires and special interests."

The Times spoke with more than two dozen people, including six women who had been romantically involved with Platner. The interviews arranged by his campaign were with three exes who now support his candidacy. The other three "offered a far more complicated assessment, describing volatile and 'toxic' relationships that were unsettling and at times emotionally wrenching."

Much of the coverage and commentary has focused on Lyndsey Fifield, who dated Platner from roughly 2013-15. The 40-year-old previously worked for former Republican South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley's 2024 presidential campaign and right-wing organizations such as the Heritage Foundation, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Independent Women's Forum, and Ladies for Kavanaugh—a group she co-founded to support the US Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, who faced sexual misconduct allegations but was still confirmed as a justice by a majority of senators, including Collins.

"I know it looks like a bitter ex-girlfriend Republican trying to take down a Democrat—it has nothing to do with that," she told the Times. "If he was running as a Republican, I would be doing this exact same thing."

Fifield said that Platner's offensive posts on Reddit—an early controversy in his campaign—"reminded me of just how much he hated women," and she challenged his insistence that he did not know the skull and crossbones tattoo he got with fellow Marines in Croatia closely resembled a Nazi symbol until last fall, when it became another campaign controversy, and he got it covered up.

According to the Times:

Mr. Platner could be rough with her, Ms. Fifield said, particularly when they were drinking, leaving her shaken and sometimes afraid. In the interviews, Ms. Fifield grappled with how to process her experiences. She was quick to note that he "never hit me, he never punched me."

But she said he regularly grabbed her by the shoulders—sometimes hard enough to leave marks—and, on one occasion, yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument when she wanted to stay in the car.

During one argument, she recalled, he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom, and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn't get out, telling her to remain there until she was "calm." Eventually, Ms. Fifield said, she fell asleep and left the next morning.

"It hurt," she said. But she added: "It didn't cause an injury, it didn't break my arm."

Platner acknowledged to the newspaper that he had "too often self-medicated with alcohol, and was a far from perfect boyfriend" during what he called a "very dark period of my life," but he also strongly denied any claims of physical intimidation or altercations with past partners or knowing about the tattoo's Nazi ties.

Phil Proschko, who served with Platner in the Marines and also got the symbol tattooed on him, said in a brief interview with Zeteo on Friday: "No, we did not purposely get hateful fucking shit because we're racist people... We got matching tattoos because we were in our 20s, drunk in Croatia, and that's it. That's all that fucking happened."

Platner reiterated his responses to the Times during a nearly 25-minute interview with Chris Hayes on MS NOW. After the host read portions of Fifield's allegations, Platner said that "anything alleging physicality" and "anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was" is "simply not true," and is coming from "someone who's politically motivated."

"I've been very upfront since the beginning of this campaign that that was a pretty dark period of my life after I came back from my combat service," added Platner, a veteran of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Hayes also invited the candidate to discuss reporting by the Times and The Wall Street Journal late last month that during an internal vetting process, Platner's wife, Amy Gertner, told campaign staff that he had exchanged sexual messages with multiple other women early in their marriage, and they had addressed it in counseling—plus Gertner's video response supporting her husband, which Platner shared on social media.

Since Thursday, some have criticized the Times, with reporters from other outlets saying that the paper "breezed past" the full scope of Fifield's right-wing work history for an article seen by critics as "a hit job against an anti-oligarchy, anti-Israel populist."

Fifield also spoke out against the final product, writing in a long social media post on Friday that "it dawned on me that this really was a setup all along. The journalists I trusted who convinced me to share a story I never wanted to tell methodically delayed and twisted this into a gift to the Platner campaign."

Responding to Fifield's post, a spokesperson for the Times told Newsweek: "We published accounts provided by several women who were in romantic relationships with Graham Platner. Our story accurately presents each of these accounts as told to our reporters and according to our standards. We stand by our reporting of the accounts from Ms. Fifield and the other women, who provided a revealing look at the behavior of a major candidate for the US Senate."

After the sexting reports, Mills said that "people have the impression that I 'withdrew' or 'dropped out,' but I simply suspended active campaigning. I am still on the ballot." The newer reporting on Platner's exes has directed fresh attention toward the governor.

As NBC News detailed late Friday:

A source close to Mills told NBC News: "The governor remains on the ballot, and in the wake of this week's stories, people across Maine are reaching out to tell her they're voting for her and encouraging her to get fully back into the race."

One Democrat who had been involved in Mills' campaign said she would move forward anew only if Platner were to step aside, not to challenge him. The Democrat said losing to him "especially now" would serve as an embarrassment to the outgoing governor.

That person, and others, noted that Tuesday's primary was not the deadline they are looking at, but rather a mid-July deadline under state law. That's when Platner would have to step aside to be replaced as the nominee.

Platner made clear during his interview with Hayes that he hasn't considered stepping aside, and since the Times' Thursday reporting, MS NOW and Fox News have spoken with various voters on Maine streets who continue to back the candidate:

Platner has stayed on the campaign trail, joining Maine gubernatorial candidate Troy Jackson; Matt Dunlap, who is running for the state's 2nd Congressional District; and Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a potential 2028 presidential candidate, for a "Changing the Tides" rally in Bar Harbor on Friday.

Platner stressed that "we are up against one of the most powerful political systems in the history of the world. It is a system of billionaires and special interests. It is a system of corrupted politicians like Susan Collins... who for years has given us some charade that she's a moderate, that she stands up against her party, that she cares more about her constituents more than she cares about those that donate money to her. We see through it."

He also addressed the various controversies throughout his campaign, saying: "Since the beginning, Maine, you had my back. When hurtful things I said on the internet a decade ago came out into the public, as I shared my personal journey through PTSD and darkness, of recovery and accountability and growth, Maine had my back."

"Now, as every single piece of that past and journey gets dug up, litigated, and weaponized, you have my back," he told a cheering crowd. "And when politically motivated, serious, and false accusations are made against me, Maine, you have my back. The state of Maine raised me, and the state of Maine saved me. And to all of you out there, Maine, I will always have your back."

Meanwhile, Khanna, a Philadelphia-born son of immigrants, said during the event that "sometimes I think we're broken right now as a country," with so many Americans who "feel unseen, unheard, undervalued."

"We can barely talk to each other. Sometimes it feels like we're having different conversations, even about the situation we see with Graham and Amy... no ability to have dialogue," he continued. "For this country to heal, we need to find some way of having grace. We need to find some way of having redemption. We need to find some way of saying that if someone... felt hurt by Graham in a past relationship, we can listen to them, and we can listen to Graham, and we can have conversations as mature Americans, as fellow citizens."

"If Graham Platner and all of you find a way to build that redemption through this campaign, through this transformation," he added, "maybe you would show a way for this country to start to redeem itself, because we sure need that as we approach this 250th anniversary."

From Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who initially backed Mills in the Maine primary, to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), an early supporter of Platner who caucuses with Democrats and twice sought their presidential nomination, the party "is united" behind "a single goal," Khanna also told the crowd. "We will defeat Susan Collins in November."

Sanders renewed his support for Platner in a Saturday social media post highlighting key campaign issues:

US Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) is set to help rally donors for Platner during a virtual event on Sunday. As Politico noted: "The event is the first public stamp of approval from Schatz, who has not endorsed Platner previously. Making it even more notable is Schatz’s status as a rising leader in the party: He is currently deputy conference secretary and chief deputy whip for the Senate Democratic Caucus, and he has secured the votes—and Chuck Schumer's endorsement—to take over the No. 2 role next year."