Why Dem politicians stopped forgiving Platner

**Brian Lehrer** (0:05)
From WNYC, I'm Brian Lehrer. This is My Daily Politics Podcast.
It's Wednesday, July 8th.
Yes, we'll talk about Graham Platner and that main Senate race to begin today, but we'll also put it in the context of the midterm elections generally. Coming up, we'll play two clips of other Democratic primary populists, and I'll tell you what printed slogans they chose to put behind them in their recent TV interview shots and why that matters. Joining me for it all is Astead Herndon, host and editorial director at Vox. The previous times he was on, as many of you may remember and you may know his work directly from this, was when he was a national political reporter for the New York Times and host of their electoral politics podcast, The Run Up. He was there from 2018 until last year. He's always done such a great job talking to voters around the country, not just politicians. Same Astead Herndon new platform, his column and podcast for Vox are called America Actually, and he lives in Brooklyn Actually. Astead, always good to have you in your reporting and analysis. Welcome back to WNYC.

**Astead Herndon** (1:15)
Yay. Thank you for having me. I love doing the show, Brian.

**Brian Lehrer** (1:18)
As we speak, Graham Platner has not yet dropped out of the Senate race. Maybe by the time some of our listeners are hearing this on the podcast later in the day, not on the live radio show, he will have all indications are that he will.
With all the other stuff swirling around him before this, why only now is he reconsidering his candidacy? And why only now populist leaders like Bernie Sanders and Saram Mamdani calling on him to drop out?

**Astead Herndon** (1:46)
Well, the short answer is a new piece of information or a new story. We have 48 hours ago, Politico reported that an ex-girlfriend explicitly accused Graham Platner of rape and sexual assault. You got another story from the Washington Post last night saying, having another ex-girlfriend say that he removed condoms during sexual intercourse, another act of sexual assault. Now, Graham Platner has denied any non-consensual behavior, but even in his acknowledgement, he said he was taking time to reflect on his campaign. And I think because the latest stories have included, you know, corroboration, people at the time kind of speaking to it. And I saw a Jake Tapper interview where the woman who was speaking in the political article talked about how conflicted she was because she shares Graham Platner's views. I think all of those things have made these allegations come with increased weight and credibility and has caused that shift of what you're talking about. You immediately had his congressional endorsers step away from him. Folks like Ro Khanna, you had also the DSCC, the Democrats National Campaign Arms say that they will not invest another dollar in this race if Graham Platner stays on the ballot.
All of this has a deadline because main Democratic Party has a clause in there, where if he drops out before July 13th, that's on Monday, they will be able to add a new candidate on the ballot before July 27th. That's why there has been such a coordinated effort. But as you say, he has not dropped out.
I think a lot of us thought that that would have already happened by now, and I think it speaks to some of the leverage that that campaign thinks it still has in trying to shape the possible replacements.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:29)
Yeah. Just looking back a little bit over the Platner story, and then I have a voter analysis question for you if you have something on the ground and this is gender related. There was the tattoo sometimes associated with the Nazis, sexting with other women while married, and a New York Times report last month on another former girlfriend, there were several women quoted in that article, but in particular, another former girlfriend who said Platner could be rough with her, I'm quoting from the Times article now, could be rough with her, leaving her shaken and sometimes afraid, unquote from the Times.
Granted, that woman had gone on to work on Republican campaigns raising credibility issues, but there were feminist warning, he is not okay before the new allegation, and yet there were many populists, he certainly had callers and texters to this show who didn't want to hear it, who didn't want to see someone who seemed to have the right political values taken down based on those things from the past. So my question to you is, did you do any on the ground reporting or see any indicating a gender divide among Democrats in Maine about Platner before this week?