A Democratic nominee for the US Senate in Maine is facing an allegation from a former girlfriend who says he forced himself on her after entering her home while allegedly “blackout drunk.”
Graham Platner rejected Jenny Racicot’s accusation on Monday, while acknowledging he was weighing whether to end his campaign in the wake of the Politico report.
Racicot, 41, told Politico that she and Platner had been in an on-again, off-again relationship for more than two years before the night in 2021 when, she alleges, he arrived uninvited at her rural Maine residence.
According to Racicot, the two had exchanged messages earlier that evening and she told him not to come over. Later, she said, she heard him enter her unlocked home on his own.
She said Platner went upstairs to where she was seated on a couch and appeared to be “blackout drunk,” then ignored her objections and began “grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me.”
“I had been telling him these words, like: ‘No, don’t,’” Racicot told Politico. “And, the look on his face and realizing what was happening, I just realized that, like, I am in a situation where there’s no consent here.”
Racicot alleged that she tried to distance herself by going into her bedroom, but said Platner followed her and had sex with her without her consent. She also claimed he ejaculated inside her despite her asking him not to because she was not using birth control.
She told the outlet she went to the bathroom afterward to clean up, and when she came back, Platner was asleep. Racicot said she confronted him the next morning, but he told her he did not remember the encounter. She then asked him to leave and not contact her again.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner, right, and his wife Amy Gertner gesture to supporters during a primary election night watch party Tuesday, June 9, 2026, in Blue Hill, Maine
Platner said in a video statement: ‘I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.’
‘Regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful of the political reality it will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins,’ he added.
‘Those were the goals when I launched this campaign, and they remain my goals today.’
Racicot did not use the term ‘rape’ in her description of the encounter with Platner to Politico, but she did use it in a set of email conversations with a therapist when she referred to the incident as ‘sa/rape’, also using the abbreviation for sexual assault.
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Racicot had previously described instances of ‘reckless and unsettling’ behavior by Platner in an interview with the New York Times.
Racicot had described Platner’s behavior to the Times as ‘reckless’ and ‘unsettling.’
‘When I saw the old comments that he made online,’ she said, ‘I recognized a version of him that I had experiences with.’
Another ex, Lyndsey Fifield, described several instances of physical intimidation she experienced with Platner to the Times.
Fifield, who worked for the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the two were in a ‘two-year, on-again, off-again relationship.’
Despite insisting that he ‘never hit me, he never punched me,’ Fifield said that Platner could become aggressive, particularly when alcohol was involved.
She told The Times he would regularly grab her by the shoulders — sometimes leaving marks — and once pulled her from a taxi by her wrist during an argument.
Fifield also recalled an incident in which he twisted her arm behind her back, pushed her into a bedroom, and held the door shut, telling her to stay there until she was ‘calm.’
Reflecting on the encounter, Fifield said, ‘It hurt,’ but also told the Times, ‘It didn’t cause an injury, it didn’t break my arm.’
Fifield also noted in her conversations that Platner would also speak about ‘rape’ in an odd and disturbing way.
‘He said this a lot: If anybody ever broke in here, I would rape them,’ she recalled, he added the act would be not be in ‘a sexual way, not in a gay way.’
‘He was like, I would rape them to show them that I’m dominant,’ Fifield said.
She also described how he kept an AR-15 lying around his Washington DC apartment and would sharpen an ax while watching television.
A third woman, a Maine Democrat who asked the Times not to be named, described the candidate as charismatic at times but also prone to heavy bouts of drinking.
She said she felt like ‘collateral damage to the world that is his.’
