The Implosion of Graham Platner

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Michael Barbaro** (0:31)
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, the implosion of Graham Platner's campaign for US Senate, the battle over who should replace him on the ballot, and the identity crisis it has laid bare inside the Democratic Party. I spoke with two of my colleagues, national political correspondents, Lisa Lerer and Shane Goldmacher.
It's Wednesday, July 8th. Lisa and Shane, thank you for making time in the middle of a very big, very live story.

**Lisa Lerer** (1:26)
Thanks for having us.

**Shane Goldmacher** (1:27)
Yeah, thank you.

**Michael Barbaro** (1:29)
We are talking to you around 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, and I want to let listeners know exactly when we're talking because this is a story that's changing a lot hour by hour. But at this very moment, it pretty much appears that it's a question of when, rather than if Graham Platner ends his Democratic campaign for US Senate in Maine, which is a race and a seat that could determine the overall control of the entire Senate this fall, which obviously has all kinds of implications, including the fate of President Trump's agenda for the rest of his second term. Do I have that when, not if calculation correct?

**Shane Goldmacher** (2:05)
That seems exactly right at this point. There are basically no major Democratic individuals or groups that are still actively supporting Graham Platner.
There's been nobody who has spoken up for him since this allegation, and in fact, the people most supportive of him, probably most notably, including Bernie Sanders, today came out and said, it's time for him to step aside.

**Michael Barbaro** (2:28)
Just catalog for me, Lisa, some of the people who have in the past day or so told Graham Platner, it's over.

**Lisa Lerer** (2:36)
We're talking about everybody from the Maine Democratic Party to the head of the State Senate in Maine, to their gubernatorial nominee, to Senator Chuck Schumer, who's the majority leader and the head of Democrats in the Senate, to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who controls the Senate Campaign Committee, to Zoran Mondani, to Elizabeth Warren. So this was a sentiment that really went across a party that really doesn't agree on all that much when it comes to strategy or policy. But on this one issue that Graham Platner has to go, everyone seemed to agree.

**Shane Goldmacher** (3:10)
And it wasn't just all the people, it was the money. The groups that control the money that has been reserved in ads in this race said, no more money for Graham Platner, if he is still the nominee.
And if there's no money, there's no competing against Susan Collins, who has tens of millions of dollars reserved already.

**Michael Barbaro** (3:27)
Okay, Lisa, let's talk about how the Platner campaign reached this crisis point. And you know this story almost better than anyone, because a few weeks back, you and Katie Glick came on the show to talk about the reporting you both did that in many ways started this all.
You were looking at the allegations about Platner's treatment of women. You had spoken with several of his former girlfriends. That story has since evolved and gotten us, I think, to this moment.

**Lisa Lerer** (3:56)
Right. So we had spoken to six women who had previously been in relationships with Graham Platner. Three of them described unsettling incidents that at times felt physically violent or menacing towards them.
One of those women who we had spoken to, a woman named Jenny Rasico, who is a Democrat, who lives in Maine. After we spoke to her, she came forward with much more explosive allegations. With her what? Basically, in interviews both with Politico and then CNN, she said that Graham Platner sexually assaulted her.

**Jenny Rasico** (4:31)
It was at the end of 2021

**Lisa Lerer** (4:35)
She says that they were in a relationship for two years or so on and off.

**Jenny Rasico** (4:39)
It was a night where him and I were texting back and forth, and he had taken something that I said as an invitation. I said, no, don't come over. Half an hour later, I heard a noise outside my door, and then he came in.

**Lisa Lerer** (4:57)
He came over uninvited, let himself into her house.