He promised there were no more skeletons. He lied.
Graham Platner — the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine who already had Nazi tattoos, domestic abuse allegations, and a graphic social media history on his résumé — has now been accused of sexual assault by a woman who, in a detail that makes this impossible to dismiss as a political hit job, openly admits she agrees with him politically.
Jenny Racicot, a 41-year-old Maine resident, went on the record with Politico. Her account is detailed, corroborated by contemporaneous communications, reviewed by the outlet across multiple interviews, and supported by a man she confided in after the alleged incident. She says Platner entered her home uninvited late at night in 2021, heavily intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop.
Warning: Some of what POLITICO is reporting is graphic:
A woman who dated Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.
The woman, a 41-year-old Maine resident named Jenny Racicot, detailed the alleged incident to POLITICO in three interviews over the past two weeks. POLITICO also spoke with a man Racicot dated and confided in the years after the alleged incident, and reviewed documents, including emails between Racicot and her therapist and messages between Racicot and an acquaintance whom she warned against getting involved with Platner years before he ran for office.
Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner, who is now the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.
“I remember him grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me,” she said. “I remember the specific moment where I thought to myself, like, ‘This is no longer my choice.’”
Platner denied the allegations.
Racicot said she later felt compelled to go public about her experience because the reaction to the Times story was dominated by controversy about another woman, Lyndsey Fifield, who alleged Platner mistreated her and faced attacks because of her ties to the Republican Party. (Contacted by POLITICO, Fifield stood by the allegations she made to the Times and declined to comment further.)
Within an hour of his campaign saying he was cancelling events because he wasn’t feeling well.
Remember when @grahamformaine promised there wouldn’t be any more scandals? pic.twitter.com/Ua5mLKp0iG
— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) July 6, 2026
“My part of the story was just a read-over,” Racicot said in an interview. “And the story was Lyndsey, and the accusations of her being politically motivated.”
Racicot said she was torn over coming forward in part because she agrees with Platner politically.
[…]
Graham Platner has canceled a campaign event for unclear reasons.
The cancellation comes as polls are testing other candidates against Collins, while rumors continue to circulate about a possible new scandal involving Platner. pic.twitter.com/kwB8srDNn5
— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) July 6, 2026
“One of the reasons I didn’t come forward sooner was, the huge moral conflict that I had between supporting his politics, but not supporting him as a person,” she said. “I just want the truth out there. I just want people to have a whole scope of who he is as a person.”
[…]
Racicot told POLITICO she connected with Platner on the dating app Bumble in 2019 and had consensual relations with him prior to the night he allegedly assaulted her.
That night in late 2021, she said she had exchanged text messages with him and told him not to come over, saying she wasn’t in the mood for company. Later that evening, she said she realized when she heard a sound on the stairs that he had let himself into her house, which was unlocked.
Platner came up the stairs, Racicot said, to where she was on a couch. He got on top of her and kept grabbing her, she said, while she repeatedly told him to stop and that she wasn’t interested. Racicot said she smelled alcohol on his breath and believed he was “almost blackout drunk” because Platner ignored her protests and continued to grab her after knocking over an antique sewing kit, spilling small needles everywhere.
“I had been telling him these words, like: ‘No, don’t,’” she recalled.
“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,” she said.
Racicot said she tried to separate herself from Platner by telling him she couldn’t be in that room anymore, after which he followed her to her bedroom and had sex with her against her will. She said he also ejaculated inside of her despite her telling him not to, as she was not using birth control at the time.
She went to clean herself up, she said, and when she returned, Platner had fallen asleep. She contemplated waking him up to kick him out, but worried he could hurt someone driving in the state he was in.
The following morning, she said, Platner tried to put his arm around her and she pushed him away. She said she asked him whether he remembered what had happened the previous night; according to Racicot, Platner said he didn’t remember. Racicot said she told him to leave and never contact her again.
This is the same man the New York Times wrote about weeks ago — a story that was itself a watered-down version of what reporters actually had, because Platner’s legal team spent 24 hours trying to kill it before publication. Political observers on both sides knew there was more. There always was. Now it’s here.
Let’s be completely direct about what Maine Democrats are now dealing with: their must-win Senate candidate has Nazi tattoos, multiple abuse allegations, a sexual assault accusation from a politically sympathetic witness, a campaign that cancels events and issues denials in the same breath, and exactly seven days before the deadline to replace him on the ballot.
July 13th. That’s the date. After that, Maine Democrats are legally stuck with Graham Platner no matter what else surfaces between now and November. And based on the pattern of this story — each revelation being the “watered-down” version of something worse — the assumption that nothing else is coming would be extraordinarily naive.
The clock is ticking. The allegations keep coming. And Maine Democrats are standing at the edge of a cliff with one week to decide whether to jump.
