Chuck Schumer set his sights on winning back the Senate majority.
Schumer’s dreams are going up in flames.
And that’s because a sex scandal forced Chuck Schumer to confront this unthinkable ultimatum.
Rape Allegations Consume Graham Platner’s Campaign
Democrats can’t win the Senate without defeating Maine Republican Susan Collins.
There is no feasible path to flipping the four GOP seats necessary to install Chuck Schumer as Senate Majority Leader without winning this race.
Democrats knew they were rolling the dice by nominating socialist oyster farmer Graham Platner.
Platner survived scandals about his past controversial comments, a Nazi tattoo and accusations from former girlfriends that he was a bad boyfriend.
But the straw that broke the camel’s back appeared to be a POLITICO story where former girlfriend Jenny Racicot alleged Platner broke into her house and raped her when the two dated in 2021.
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner, who is now the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual,” POLITICO exclusively reported.
Racicot also went on the record to detail the alleged assault.
“I remember him grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me,” Racicot recounted. “I remember the specific moment where I thought to myself, like, ‘This is no longer my choice.’”
“He violated multiple layers of consent that night. By coming into my home when I asked him not to, and by advancing on me when I told him not to, and furthermore, another incident that I had told him not to do,” Racicot went on to say.
“In that moment, I evaluated my safety. … I basically felt safest just complying,” Racicot concluded.
Platner Delivers Democrats an Ultimatum
Democrat support for Platner evaporated in the wake of the POLITICO story.
Schumer announced Democrats would spend no more money on the Maine race as long as Platner was the candidate.
Potential 2028 candidates like Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) yanked their endorsements.
Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders declared that Platner should step aside.
The goal was to force Platner out of the race by the July 13 deadline to replace him on the ballot with a new candidate.
But Platner held all the cards since he was the nominee, thus felt he could leverage that position to say he would only drop out of the race if Democrats replaced him with a like-minded socialist.
The New York Times reported that Platner “had not made a decision on whether to drop out, according to a person familiar with the campaign’s internal discussions, but was weighing his terms of a withdrawal if he decided to do so. He was seeking a guarantee that party officials would replace him with someone who shares “the values and vision and policy agenda” he had advocated.”
The ball is now in Schumer and the Democrat Party’s court to either placate Platner by replacing him with another potentially unelectable socialist or be forced to manage the 2026 election with Platner’s doomed campaign dragging down their prospects.
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