They told him that he was \u201cthe guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last July, in a small town in coastal Maine, a couple of progressive, self-styled recruiters of economic populists showed up at the blue-shingled house of Graham Platner, a little-known oyster farmer and Marine veteran who lived largely off government benefits<\/a>.<\/p>\n They knew his name from local labor organizers and activists, and they had watched a video<\/a> on the internet of him talking about oysters. Struck by his left-leaning ideology, his working-class affect and his gravelly voice, they became convinced that he could win a Senate seat in Maine \u2014 and quickly persuaded Mr. Platner of the same.<\/p>\n The initial headhunters, Dan Moraff and Leanne Fan, and then a third out-of-state operative they called up to Maine \u2014 Morris Katz \u2014 told Mr. Platner he was \u201cthe one,\u201d a \u201chero of the movement,\u201d \u201ca historical figure\u201d who could be \u201cleading a revolution,\u201d according to half a dozen people with knowledge of their conversations.<\/p>\n But a clutch of people who cared about Mr. Platner were telling him something else. They worried about his mental health, amid his ongoing efforts to heal from post-traumatic stress disorder after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. They feared this trio of out-of-state operatives was a dangerous combination of inexperienced and overconfident. The worst-case scenario, they thought, wasn\u2019t running for Senate and losing \u2014 it was destroying the life he worked hard to build.<\/p>\n Until recently, Mr. Platner had seemed to prove the worriers wrong. His campaign was pumping out viral videos and broadcasting scenes from crowded town halls. He easily pushed a sitting governor<\/a> out of the Democratic primary as voters embraced his message of economic populism and overlooked his checkered past. Progressives across the country heralded him as a new left-wing hero and saw him as their best opportunity to defeat Senator Susan Collins, a Republican, in a race that could decide control of the Senate.<\/p>\n But behind the scenes, his campaign was messy, disorganized and haphazardly run. Mr. Platner did not disclose explosive, politically damaging secrets to key members of his team. And he was guarded by an insular and zealously protective inner circle of advisers who did not always seem to grasp the seriousness \u2014 or strangeness \u2014 of what quickly became a steady drip of scandal, according to party strategists, Democratic officials and former staff members.<\/p>\n Repeatedly, Mr. Platner promised there was nothing else damaging from his past to come. And each time, he was wrong.<\/p>\n Mr. Platner, said Ronald Holmes III, his former national finance director, was \u201cseriously flawed.\u201d But he faulted Mr. Platner\u2019s team for failing to \u201cask the right questions and get honest answers.\u201d<\/p>\n In a statement, the campaign disputed the idea that there was a lack of planning or infrastructure as \u201csimply false,\u201d and said that the team \u201cbuilt the operation, strategy, and organization needed to create one of the strongest grass-roots campaigns Maine has ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n This report is based on interviews with more than 30 people who interacted with the campaign or Mr. Platner, many of whom were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.<\/p>\n In June, as rumors swirled about a damaging story coming from The New York Times featuring several of Mr. Platner\u2019s ex-girlfriends, Mr. Katz called a top national Democratic strategist, insisting that there were no issues in Mr. Platner\u2019s past concerning his treatment of women, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversation.<\/p>\n Mr. Katz said he had asked Mr. Platner directly and repeatedly whether anyone had made sexual assault allegations against him and the candidate had said no, according to two people familiar with the discussion who described it on the condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a slow-rolling disaster instead of all happening at once \u2014 it\u2019s been really drawn out and painful and difficult to watch,\u201d added Mr. Holmes, who resigned last fall after raising concerns about the professionalism of the campaign\u2019s senior leadership. \u201cIt\u2019s like we\u2019ve been watching a mile-long train derail at four miles an hour.\u201d<\/p>\n That train finally crashed this week, when a woman who had dated Mr. Platner accused him of rape<\/a>. He denied the allegation, but released a video saying he was taking time to \u201creflect\u201d on his path forward.<\/p>\n Within roughly 24 hours, Democrats at every level had called for him to withdraw, and the Maine Democratic Party was on a war footing<\/a> with its own nominee. Ambitious politicians<\/a> were taking steps to try to succeed him on the ticket. And Democrats across the country wondered how one of their best chances to flip a Senate seat had imploded.<\/p>\n A \u2018Totenkopf\u2019 tattoo<\/p>\n Before Mr. Platner became the Democrats\u2019 biggest headache, his most ardent supporters spoke about him in strikingly lofty terms.<\/p>\n As his campaign was getting off the ground, Mr. Moraff likened him to Barack Obama in conversations with senior Democratic officials, according to two people with knowledge of the private conversations.<\/p>\n But there were early signs that Mr. Platner had serious political liabilities. Less than two weeks after he announced his bid, his wife, Amy Gertner, approached a top campaign aide. She wanted to disclose that Mr. Platner had been exchanging sexual messages with multiple women<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mr. Platner was about to hold a campaign event with Senator Bernie Sanders, his first major endorser and a personal hero. Ms. Gertner told Genevieve McDonald, then the campaign\u2019s political director, that she worried Mr. Sanders would think less of her husband if he later found out about the exchanges with other women, Ms. McDonald recalled.<\/p>\n Was that the extent of the controversy in Mr. Platner\u2019s personal life or was there more to worry about? Campaign officials appeared not to know.<\/p>\n A top Platner adviser had promised a national Democratic strategist that they would not launch a campaign without completing a full investigation of Mr. Platner\u2019s background. But, according to two people familiar with the campaign\u2019s operations, no extensive effort was undertaken in one of the marquee races of the midterm cycle.<\/p>\n Instead, they conducted an expedited review, resulting in a short risk-assessment memo.<\/p>\n Mr. Platner\u2019s campaign said that a research firm produced a vetting memo of nearly 50 pages that included searches of news reports, social media posts and public documents. They did not do exhaustive interviews with Mr. Platner.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018None of this will or should stop him from becoming a U.S. senator,\u2019\u201d Mr. Moraff told<\/a> The Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n But others had access to significantly more damaging information about Mr. Platner\u2019s past.<\/p>\n In Northern Virginia, Lyndsey Fifield, a former girlfriend of Mr. Platner\u2019s, texted a private group chat of friends last summer about a tattoo on his chest widely recognized as a Nazi symbol. He had gotten it while serving in the military and referred to it, she has said, as \u201cmy Totenkopf.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n The \u201cNazi tattoo on his chest,\u201d Ms. Fifield suggested, was going to be a problem.<\/p>\n The existence of the tattoo, however, did not immediately become public. In the meantime, Mr. Platner\u2019s campaign began to find an audience. He drew bigger and bigger crowds, crisscrossing the state for events and spending hours gabbing on podcasts.<\/p>\n Yet controversies kept arising. In October, CNN<\/a> and other news outlets uncovered a trove of incendiary online posts that Mr. Platner had written between 2009 and 2021, which included dismissive comments about rape and sexual assault in the military.<\/p>\n Mr. Platner apologized, and has urged the public not to judge him for his worst moments on the internet.<\/p>\n The lack of disclosure about his past made Ms. McDonald, a former state legislator and lobbyist, uncomfortable. She quit the campaign in October.<\/p>\n Around the same time, photos of Mr. Platner\u2019s tattoo from his wife\u2019s Facebook account began leaking to news organizations.<\/p>\n The Platner team, hoping to defuse the potential damage, released video footage of a shirtless Mr. Platner with the tattoo visible to Pod Save America, a liberal podcast that supported his bid.<\/p>\n In a friendly interview,<\/a> Mr. Platner dismissed the issue as little more than pearl-clutching by his opponents. \u201cI am not a secret Nazi,\u201d he said. \u201cLifelong opponent.\u201d<\/p>\n At the time, Mr. Platner said in a statement that he did not know<\/a> that his tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol until it became a campaign issue.<\/p>\n More staffers, including Mr. Holmes, left the campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that complicated\u201d<\/p>\n For months, there was little indication that any of the controversy was seriously hurting his candidacy.<\/p>\n As Mr. Platner\u2019s star rose through the winter and early spring, Mr. Katz was privately promoting him as a future presidential candidate for as soon as 2028, if he won his Senate bid.<\/p>\n When Janet Mills, his chief Democratic primary opponent, produced tough ads featuring his comments about women and rape, it did little to change the trajectory of the race. Poll after poll showed Mr. Platner leading Ms. Mills, a two-term governor who was supported by national Democratic leaders, by double-digits.<\/p>\n Mr. Platner built a movement-like following, emerging as one of his party\u2019s most powerful online fund-raisers. His campaign constructed an image of a working-class combat veteran who had returned to Maine to rebuild his life, who spoke movingly about the failings of American foreign policy and rallied voters with his promises to take on a political system dominated by corporations and billionaires. Democrats flocked to his town hall meetings.<\/p>\n Publicly, at least, the candidate expressed nothing but bravado.<\/p>\n In an April interview, he dismissed any jitters about going up against Ms. Mills \u2014 a former prosecutor \u2014 in a series of planned public debates.<\/p>\n Mr. Platner had debated before, he said, in college classes. His preparations, he said, were \u201cstandard run-of-the mill debate prep.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, I\u2019ve seen enough and read enough about politics that it looks and sounds very much like what debate prep usually looks like,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He added: \u201cStanding up and talking about the things you believe in, it\u2019s not that complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Platner\u2019s theory about debating would never be tested. The next morning, Ms. Mills dropped out the race<\/a>, saying she lacked the funds to compete.<\/p>\n But by June, Mr. Platner was trailing far behind Ms. Collins in campaign funds. Mr. Platner\u2019s campaign had only about $1.3 million cash on hand a few weeks before he exited the race, according to his campaign \u2014 a fraction of Ms. Collins\u2019s $9.7 million war chest as of late May. A person familiar with the campaign\u2019s finances said the amount of cash available to spend was even lower \u2014 under $100,000.<\/p>\n The campaign raised nearly $9 million last quarter, said a campaign official, more than doubling the previous quarter\u2019s haul. While the campaign successfully focused on attracting small-dollar donations, it struggled to recruit and retain big-dollar donors.<\/p>\n Campaign aides told top Democratic strategists that donors kept raising concerns about the tattoo and his other controversies. Their requests for help assuaging donors\u2019 concerns were met with silence from the national committee, according to three people familiar with discussions.<\/p>\n Last week, Mr. Platner kicked off a call with a new national finance committee \u2014 a first, if belated, step to bundle checks from wealthy donors, according to an invitation seen by The Times. And the campaign took its worries about money public, warning on a call with reporters that he was being swamped on the airwaves.<\/p>\n Estimates showed they were set to be outspent by 2 to 1 on advertising by Ms. Collins and her allies through Election Day, according to data from the media tracking firm AdImpact.<\/p>\n \u201cI was training with my jujitsu buddies at my kids\u2019 class yesterday,\u201d Ben Chin, Mr. Platner\u2019s campaign manager, told reporters. \u201cThere were these radio ads that were coming on as we were listening, and people were starting to give me a hard time, like, \u2018Oh, where are your radio ads?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n A campaign in crisis<\/p>\n The campaign\u2019s money troubles were exacerbated by a series of even more damaging revelations about his personal conduct and treatment of women. In May, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times published<\/a> stories<\/a> detailing sexual text exchanges with women that had worried Ms. McDonald and Ms. Gertner nearly 10 months earlier.<\/p>\n