Graham Platner has officially submitted the necessary paperwork to suspend his U.S. Senate campaign in Maine, doing so shortly before the withdrawal deadline.
The Maine Secretary of State’s Office said Friday that it had received Platner’s formal notice of withdrawal.
“Because the candidate officially withdrew before 5 p.m. of the 2nd Monday in July (July 13, 2026), his name will not appear on the ballot, and his political party may replace him,” the office said in a statement. Officials added that the party has until July 27 to submit the name of a replacement candidate.
In his letter to the Maine secretary of state, which Platner posted to X on Friday, he wrote that he was formally withdrawing his candidacy for U.S. Senate.
“My name may have been on the ballot, but that ballot line belongs to the people of Maine. As such, please consider this notice as my official withdrawal from consideration for this office,” Platner wrote.
Platner announced the suspension of his campaign in an 11-minute social media video on Wednesday, after a woman accused him of sexual assault and the Democrats who supported him said he should step aside.
Platner strongly rejected the sexual assault allegations against him, describing them as “false” and “not real.” Still, he said mounting pressure from both Maine Democrats and national party figures left his campaign with no viable path forward. He placed blame on the “political establishment” for forcing the outcome.
Platner’s last-minute departure has set off a scramble among Democrats looking to replace him. The Maine Democratic Party must choose a new nominee by 5 p.m. on July 27 and has said it plans to convene a nominating convention.
“Maine Statute does not address how a replacement candidate may be chosen by a party, only that the candidate filling the vacancy must be a ‘qualified person,'” the Maine Secretary of State’s Office said in its statement. “Announcements about how a replacement candidate will be chosen or when that candidate will be announced will come from the political party.”
Maine’s Senate contest is among the cycle’s most closely watched races, with Democrats targeting Republican Sen. Susan Collins in a battle that could play a pivotal role in deciding which party controls the Senate.
Platner had urged the Maine Democratic Party to use an “open, transparent and democratic” process to replace him, and said the decision shouldn’t be made by “party apparatchiks.”
A Maine woman, Jenny Racicot, told Politico and CNN that Platner entered her home without permission in late 2021 when he was drunk and forced himself on her, ignoring her demands for him to stop. Racicot said the two met on a dating app in 2019 and had a casual, consensual relationship before the night of the alleged assault.
Racicot told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Platner, “by dictionary definition, raped me.”
“He violated multiple layers of consent that night. By coming into my home when I asked him not to, and by advancing on me when I told him not to, and furthermore, another incident that I had told him not to do,” Racicot said, referring to his alleged refusal to use protection.
She said: “In that moment, I evaluated my safety. … I basically felt safest just complying.”
Platner called the allegations “categorically false” in a video shortly after Politico broke the story Monday, before Racicot’s CNN interview. In a statement, his campaign called the allegations “desperate smears” that were “coached and coordinated by out of state establishment operatives.”
In his video announcing the end of his campaign, Platner said he learned about the allegations through press inquiries “with no time to truly respond, no time for investigations before a corporate media system and the political establishment got to act as judge, jury and executioner.”
“Accusations are supposed to be the beginning of things, not the end,” he said.
“This was the last week to try to get me off of the ballot, and that’s why this is occurring,” he added.
The allegations led the Maine Democratic Party, along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who chairs Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, to call on Platner to withdraw earlier this week. The DSCC said it would not invest in the race if Platner remained on the ballot, and the Senate Majority PAC said in light of the allegations, it was redirecting resources away from the Maine Senate race, severely limiting his campaign’s viability going forward.
And a number of Platner’s highest-profile supporters in Congress — like Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona — also took back their endorsements shortly after the story became public.
On Tuesday, independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said he spoke with Platner and “recommended that he step aside.” The statement carried significant weight, with Sanders having been a key supporter of Platner’s.
Caitlin Yilek and
Kaia Hubbard
contributed to this report.
