A former senior aide to Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner is warning voters that Platner “shouldn’t be a U.S. senator.”
Genevieve McDonald, who served as Platner’s political director early in his campaign, wrote an opinion piece published in the Washington PostMonday.
Maine’s primary election is Tuesday.
“Graham Platner is not someone who would be good for Maine or for the country,” McDonald wrote.
“I quit the campaign in October, disturbed by what I learned about the candidate and concerned about his potential impact on the Democratic Party’s prospects in my home state,” she continued. “As Tuesday’s primary arrives, I want to make clear what transpired since August and why my concerns have only grown.”
McDonald said Platner displays “a pattern of dishonest behavior that is impossible to ignore.”
“Despite being exposed by a series of scandals beginning last October, he kept assuring voters and the Democratic Party that there were no more skeletons in his closet,” she wrote. “Then more emerged – the latest, in recent days, have involved former girlfriends’ serious accusations of physical mistreatment.”
Platner’s campaign has had a multitude of issues, including past online comments, allegations surrounding a tattoo said to resemble a Nazi Totenkopf symbol, reports of sexting with women outside his marriage, and, most recently, accusations of abuse made by a former girlfriend in “The New York Times.” Platner has denied the allegations.
“I was willing to believe his explanations, I wanted to believe, until his flaws as a candidate became impossible to ignore,” McDonald wrote.
She also claimed that after resigning, she was offered “$15,000 to sign a nondisclosure agreement.”
She declined.
She also noted “over the past eight months, women have come to me with their own disturbing stories about Platner.”
“The answer to a broken political culture is not to accept it. Demand better from those entrusted with power or seeking it. Enough is enough,” McDonald wrote.