Politics

Democrats' Maine Problem

Plus: NYC's construction boom, how the DSA was hijacked by communists, and more...

Liz Wolfe | 7.7.2026 9:30 AM

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(Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA/Newscom/CNN/Graham Platner/Facebook)

Rape allegations: Yesterday, Graham Platner—who is trying to unseat Susan Collins from her U.S. Senate seat, and who already won the Democratic primary, positioning him quite well to flip that seat from red to blue come November—faced the most serious allegations yet: that he had raped a woman.

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Jenny Racicot met Platner via a dating app in 2019, starting an on-again, off-again relationship with him. In 2021, she alleges that he assaulted her—allegations Politico broke yesterday, that Racicot discussed on CNN.

"I said, 'No, don't come over,'" Racicot told CNN. "Like, 'I'm not in the mood. Don't come over.'" When he didn't respond via text, she assumed "he got the message," she said, but "half an hour later, I heard a noise outside my door and then he came in. He just came into my house. It was unlocked." Platner "jumped on top of" her while she was lying on the couch and "indicated that he had intentions that were sexual in nature," Racicot added. "I remember just at first being like, 'Hey, I'm not into this,'" she said. "Like, 'Don't, I'm not in the mood.'" Then she saw a "look in his eyes" and the smell of booze. "I was like, 'This is different—he is heavily intoxicated,'" she told CNN. "And that blank stare was kind of like a photographic memory that I still have of that night."

She pushed Platner away, and he backed into her antique sewing kit, causing sharp objects to scatter all over the floor. "I remember specifically him grabbing at my chest, and I hit his hand and I said, 'Don't touch me,'"........

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