He rose on grievance — and he fell on grievance.
Graham Platner’s wild ride through national politics started as a charmed fairy tale and ended in a screeching halt Wednesday night, stopped by a pile-up of allegations ranging from unsavory to potentially criminal.
You would hope this would be a lesson for Democrats: You cannot build a political career on vibes alone.
His fall came two days after ex-girlfriend Jenny Recicot told Politico that, in 2021, Platner came to her home and forced her to have sex against her will.
Following that claim, many of the high-profile names — including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer — who had backed him for the US Senate race in Maine disavowed Platner, urging the Democrat to drop out.
In an 11-minute resignation video posted on X, the 41-year-old was defiant, narcissistic and conspiratorial as he raged against the Democrat machine.
First, he denied Racicot’s explosive claim: “I just want to make it clear this is all false,” he said in his deep Batman voice. “The things that have been claimed did not happen. It’s not real.”
Then he launched into a rant blaming the establishment for using claims against him “as an excuse to take away all of the things that we need to run a campaign.”
“We’re not doing it because of the allegations,” he said of dropping out. “We’re doing it because of the structures that are being taken away from us by those in power.”
He’s a man in denial. The structures were taken away because of the allegations against him, and only because of them. Yes, oppo research is a real thing — but, in this case, it wasn’t even necessary.
“We won,” Platner said of the Dem primary. “Now they are not going to let us have it. Not if it’s me.”
Is this a grizzled Maine man or a spoiled toddler whose toy was confiscated?
The left-wing progressive believes he is another victim of big politics — the kind he was trying to defeat.
But he got suckered into thinking that he was the leader of surging left-wing populism. In reality, he was simply an actor cast to lead it.
Indeed, Platner’s rise was like a movie.
With no political experience, he was plucked from relative obscurity by Dan Moraff and Leanne Fan, Ivy League-educated scouts looking for the progressive movement’s new face like they were running a small-town model search.
Platner, a combat veteran, was living in Sullivan, Maine, surviving mostly off government benefits and dabbling in oyster farming (his mother was his only customer). Taken with his left-wing politics and blue-collar costume, they called Morris Katz, the young operative behind New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign.
The New York Times reported that the trio gassed Platner up, telling him that “he was ‘the one,’ a ‘hero of the movement’ and ‘a historical figure’ who could be ‘leading a revolution,’ according to half a dozen sources.”
They rolled him out to the most prominent position in the showroom without properly looking under the hood.
Platner quickly rose to national prominence thanks to positive press and a carefully crafted po-origin story of a hardscrabble life — despite having attended posh prep school Hotchkiss and buying his home with a $200,000 loan from his attorney father.
The newcomer drew massive support from household names including New York’s Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and California Rep. Ro Khanna. The “Pod Save America” bros fawned all over him.
“As Mr. Platner’s star rose through the winter and early spring,” the Times wrote Wednesday, “Mr. Katz was privately promoting him as a future presidential candidate for as soon as 2028, if he won his senate bid.”
All those excitable supporters ignored loads of red flags. The Totenkopf Nazi tattoo. The revelations — from his own wife — that the married veteran had been sexting other women. The allegations from another ex-girlfriend, Lyndsey Fiefeld, that he had locked her in a room and physically pulled her out of a car.
Fifield is a Republican, so of course her claim was dismissed.
Dems clearly felt emboldened as skeleton after skeleton fell out of his closet and his supporters didn’t seem to care.
But the wheels came off with Racicot, an avowed leftie who said she agreed with his politics but came forward because of his character.
Platner should blame his campaign’s implosion on his own bad behavior and buying into the folks who sold him a fantasy.
Meanwhile, it’s unclear if people in Maine are as bereft as the insurgent national lefties who pushed him as their big hope at taking back the Senate.
The morning after the video broke, the Bangor Daily News’ most read story was not about Platner — but about the return of female hummingbirds to feeders.
