Amid serious allegations, what's next for Graham Platner's Senate campaign?

0:00It's Consider This, where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, accusations of sexual assault and a high-stakes Senate race and uncertainty about a candidate's next steps. Graham Platner's supporters and defenders are walking away and calling on him to drop out of Maine's high-stakes Senate race. Whether it's new allegations or even digging deeper into allegations that are already on the public record, it's pretty clear that Republicans were going to make this fall campaign about Graham Platner. That's the political problem for him. That is Democratic strategist Joel Payne speaking to NPR Tuesday.

0:35Plattner's bid for the U.S. Senate is a key race for Democrats to win back the Senate this fall. And time is running out. Plattner has less than one week to withdraw or else his name will still be on the ballot this fall. And that is causing a lot of anxiety inside his party. Consider this. Democrats made a big and risky bet with Graham Plattner's candidacy. and that bet may no longer be paying off. So what's next?

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2:19It's Consider This from NPR. Graham Plattner was once seen as the key to Democrats flipping enough seats to retake the U.S. Senate. Now Democratic Party leaders are withdrawing their endorsements and calling for him to drop out of the Senate race in Maine. Yesterday, Politico reported that a woman he once dated accused him of sexual assault. Plattner denied the accusation and said, quote, any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically untrue. But this news came after other reports of unsettling behavior from women who previously dated Plattner and an extramarital sexting scandal. So where does the race go from here?

2:55For that, we called Adam Jentleson. He's a Democratic strategist and the founder and president of the Searchlight Institute, a liberal think tank. Thanks for coming by, Adam. Thanks for having me. Is this campaign viable anymore? No, it's absolutely not. I'm surprised Plattner hasn't dropped out already, but he's gone. And, you know, the sooner the better. So because main Democratic Party rules do allow the party to select a replacement as long as he drops out before Monday. So the clock is ticking. I think, you know, Democrats still have a great chance to win this seat if he drops out. So, you know, he should get out sooner rather than later.

3:31Plattner had a lot of support from Democratic voters, even amid all those other scandals. What to you is the least terrible way to quickly choose a new nominee who the voters didn't get behind? I think you have to figure out a claim to legitimacy for this new nominee. We saw how not actually being elected by voters dogged Kamala Harris as the nominee when she was picked by essentially party insiders to be the nominee. She was vice president, but she did not win the Democratic nomination in the traditional way. So I think you've got to apply the same standard here. There were seven Democratic candidates who ran for two statewide slots about a month ago in the primary, right?

4:16There was the race for senator and there's the race for governor. In those seven candidates, there are a lot of credible nominees, all of whom I think would have a solid chance at beating Susan Collins. The only one who can't is Planner himself. And all of them would have some claim to legitimacy because a lot of people cast their votes for them. I think holding a convention that you have to plan in less than a month and then crafting rules and bylaws that everybody agrees to, you could make it work. But if you use subjective standards to choose the nominee at that convention, I think you're going to run into a lot of trouble.

4:51And you run a real risk of leaving the party divided, which would be a real disaster as we head into the general election against Susan Collins. Well, that's what I want to ask about, because a big part of Plattner's strength was that he was not an establishment figure. He did not come up in politics in any way at all. And that really appealed to voters in a way that we've seen in a bunch of states right now. I mean, how do you get those people who supported Plattner to be on board with a mainstream politician who was chosen one way or another through a very quick process that isn't as open as a regular primary?

5:23Right. Well, I think there's risk in overstating that case, to be honest with you. I think, you know, the primary that Maine had a month ago was sort of a split screen, right? Because, you know, on the Senate side, you had people casting their vote for Plattner, who, as you say, is an anti-establishment politician. But on the governor's side, on the same day, those voters went to the polls and elected Shelley Pingree, who's, excuse me, Hannah Pingree, the daughter of Shelley Pingree, who is, you know, an establishment politician. She, you know, She's wonderful. I think she's going to be a great governor, and I think she's got a great chance to win.

5:57But she wasn't an anti-establishment candidate. And when you look at the votes, about 156 ,000 Mainers cast their votes for Graham Plattner. And the guy who was sort of positioned as the anti-establishment candidate who Graham is trying to railroad through as his replacement, Troy Jackson, only got about 45 ,000 votes. So 100 ,000 Mainers voted for Graham Plattner, but then supported either Hannah Pingree or Nirav Shah as well. So a lot of those same people who voted for him also supported some of the more establishment politicians. I want to make sure we have time for one more thorny question with all of this.

6:35I'm wondering if you think the Democratic Party, the party that embraced Me Too, that talked about believing women, do you think it lost credibility or moral authority by sticking with Plattner through all of the scandals leading up to this moment? Not if they get rid of him. I think one of the things the Republicans did is when they were faced with these questions, they stuck with them. They stuck with Trump. They stuck with Matt Gaetz. They stuck with any number of nominees after knowing deeply immoral things about them. So as long as we take care of business here and replace him with somebody we can all get behind, I think we can hold our heads high.

7:08Do you still think Susan Collins is beatable? I absolutely do. This is a very favorable national environment for Democrats. Trump's numbers are terrible. Susan Collins has been a diehard supporter of Trump time and again. She's lost her independence streak. We just have to get somebody in this race who can just be normal and make the case and prosecute the case against Susan Collins. In that case, I think this seat is still very winnable. Put be normal on a bumper sticker. That is Adam Jentleson, Democratic strategist, founder of Searchlight Institute Think Tank. Thanks so much. Thank you. This episode was produced by Tyler Bartlom and Karen Zamora with audio engineering by Ted Meebe.

7:47Our director is Jonas Adams. It was edited by Patrick Jaron Wadanan and Tinbeat Armias. Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dornig.

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