As Maine Democrats scramble to replace Platner, party director says the ‘grassroots energy … needs to find a home’

As the Maine Democratic Party scrambles to recover from the collapsed Senate campaign of Graham Platner, at the state party headquarters the phone hasn’t stopped ringing for 31-year-old Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson and her small team — along with a growing army of unpaid volunteers.

They‘re facing uncharted political waters since Platner withdrew from the election last week in the race against Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins while continuing to deny an allegation of sexual assault that derailed his candidacy. 

The party is now building a candidate selection process from scratch in a race that could decide which party controls the Senate. 

2 weeks to choose a new candidate…

“As everyone now knows in the country, we owe the Secretary of State at 5 p.m. on Monday, July 27th, a name,” Murphy-Anderson told ABC News’ Jay O’Brien on Saturday. She added later, “We’ve got two weeks … so our goal going into this was to make this as fair and transparent and inclusive a process as possible.”

Democrats plan a 601-person party convention to be held on July 25, just two days before the deadline. Those delegates will include 101 members from the state party’s central committee and 500 delegates from all of Maine’s 16 counties. Voters will also have a say, Murphy-Anderson told O’Brien, including meetings within their local parties beforehand. 

“That’s the biggest problem facing you guys, isn’t it? Making sure that voters who voted in that primary overwhelmingly for Graham Platner feel represented?” O’Brien asked.

“I think we face a lot of challenges, right? And that is definitely one of them,” Murphy-Anderson said, adding later, “The grassroots energy that we had up until this moment needs to find a home.”

O’Brien pressed Murphy Anderson: “Are you worried that it might not?”

“No, I’m not. And if you are here on the ground in Maine, I am confident that you will come away with that same conclusion,” Murphy-Anderson responded.

Platner, an oyster farmer and Marine combat veteran, built up an insurgent, progressive campaign and guided it through other scandals and controversies, including reports he sent sexually explicit messages to multiple women shortly after he was married in 2023, as well as questions about a tattoo on his chest resembling a Nazi symbol. 

Platner said he got the tattoo while he was drunk on leave with other Marines in 2007; he later covered it up, claiming he hadn’t known its significance.

Progressives such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., largely stuck by him until less than a week ago when an ex-girlfriend accused Platner of sexual assault, an allegation he denies. A chorus of Democrats — including Sanders — then called on him to step aside.

Platner initially dragged his feet, and even when he announced he would suspend his bid, claimed, “I learned about this [allegation] 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.”

But in a defiant video last week, Murphy-Anderson blamed Platner and his campaign for essentially holding the process of picking a replacement hostage.

Platner’s campaign confirmed it had reached out to the party, but denied trying to influence the selection process, saying the campaign was trying to understand how Platner would be replaced on the ballot.

«What gave you that impression that they were trying to dictate terms here?” O’Brien asked Murphy-Anderson.

She declined to share specifics of the demands she said Platner’s team made, but said they had made “direct calls to my phone,” later saying they “called with very specific things that they were asking for.”

“This campaign that had been centered on not putting their thumb on the scale, was now trying to do the same thing, and his supporters deserved better, our supporters deserved better, and Mainers deserve better,” Murphy-Anderson told O’Brien.

When he ultimately ended his campaign, Platner blamed “large forces” working against him after Senate leadership threatened to pull campaign funding.

“We believe that for the movement to continue, it can’t be me” on the ballot, he said in an 11-minute video posted on social media late Wednesday, but added, “Those in power who have the ability to do so are using these allegations as an excuse to take away all of the things that we need to run a campaign.”

Murphy-Anderson pushed back sharply on that insinuation.

“This is not an institution. You’re here in our office. There’s no cigar smoke to be seen, right? It is a bunch of young people,” she told O’Brien.

“But he did kind of create that impression,” O’Brien pressed.

“I don’t know what his end goal was, and I’m not concerned with that,” Murphy-Anderson responded.

…and 2 weeks for them to make their case to take on Collins

While only a few days old, the race to replace Platner is already in full swing. At least seven hopefuls so far, including statewide leaders and former candidates for other races, are pitching themselves as the best bet to unseat Collins, Maine’s longtime Republican senator. She is the only Republican defending a Senate seat this year in a state Trump lost in 2024. 

The list of candidates includes former State Senate President and logger Troy Jackson, who’s trying to pick up Platner’s working class mantle; as well as Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, Maine Beer Company founder Dan Kleban and the state’s former CDC director Dr. Nirav Shah.

At the first stop on Shah’s new town hall tour launched in the wake of Platner’s withdrawal, Shah told O’Brien he was not worried Platner’s scandals have made it harder to defeat Collins, and that he doesn’t think he’s lost valuable time as a candidate despite launching his bid so late.

“Our mission hasn’t changed. The person who’s going to be at the front of that mission is changing, but the desire, the enthusiasm, the zeal among Democrats to defeat Susan Collins has not changed at all,” Shah said.

Collins, who has won five Senate races in Maine, says the change in her opponent doesn’t impact her approach. 

“I never take any race for granted,” she told ABC affiliate WMTW on Saturday.

Former Platner supporters look at the road ahead

But Democrats face the additional challenge of uniting behind a new candidate, as some former Platner supporters say they’re grieving the withdrawal of their preferred candidate and hoping their second choice doesn’t hurt Democrats’ chances in November.

Mark Read, a Democrat who supported Platner, told O’Brien, “I think most of us were attracted to the politics that he spoke to.”

Another Platner supporter, Sandra Smith Congdon, told O’Brien she thinks most of those who backed Platner will come out to support the new candidate in the end, although it won’t be easy.

“I think people will take some time, but I think ultimately they will. I think that they need to get behind whoever the nominee is and support that person to beat Susan Collins, because ultimately that’s what matters,” she said.