Graham Platner and the Limits of ‘Believe Women’

Source: Graham Platner and the Limits of ‘Believe Women’
Publisher: The Free Press | Author: The Editors
Published: July 7, 2026 | Archived: July 9, 2026

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Graham Platner’s Senate campaign is all but over. The progressive Maine Democratic Senate candidate with enough skeletons in his closet to fill a cemetery announced Monday that he’d be “reflecting” on the best path forward after an ex-girlfriend, Jenny Racicot, accused him of rape.**

We’re bringing you two stories about Platner’s downfall and what it means. Scroll down to read our editorial, in which we unpack how Platner lasted so long, and the troubling double standards this story has revealed in the media and the Democratic Party. But first, read Caitlin Flanagan’s proposal for a new, Platner-inspired entry into the political lexicon: The Honest Oysterman. —The Editors**

The journalists and politicians who brought you the slogan “Believe Women” are making themselves awfully hard to believe. That’s because they’re so fickle about the women they choose to credit and the others who they tarnish as liars, all depending on their politics. The downfall of Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner is a case in point.

Platner’s Senate campaign is all but dead after Jenny Racicot, a 41-year-old Maine resident who dated Platner on and off for more than two years, told Politico that he raped her in 2021 after entering her home uninvited and heavily intoxicated. Within hours of the Politico story’s publication, senior Democrats—including some of Platner’s most loyal champions like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders—had rescinded their endorsements. Platner has denied the allegations but is “taking the time to reflect on the best path forward.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who leads the main Senate campaign arm, promised to withhold funding if Platner stayed in the race.

The entire party is lining up to denounce Platner, and their stern condemnations are meant to show off their credentials as defenders of women’s dignity. Mainstream journalists are taking the latest allegations seriously. Yet both the politicians and the press sounded very different only weeks ago, when the first allegations of sexual impropriety from a former partner of Platner’s were reported. That’s because the principal claims came from a woman who happens to be a Republican.

The New York Times’ Katie Glueck and Lisa Lerer published a report in early June that featured accounts from several women who accused Platner of abusive behavior. Among the most serious claims came from Lyndsey Fifield, who recalled that Platner regularly grabbed her by the shoulders, violently yanked her out of a cab, and locked her in a bedroom. Yet in the same article, the Times reporters seemed to cast doubt on Fifield’s claims, saying they “could not independently corroborate” what she had told them.

The wrong politics are enough to get an alleged victim of sexual harassment left out in the cold among today’s left.

The article did manage to report extensively on Fifield’s political background. That includes a denial from Platner’s campaign that dismissed Fifield as a “lifelong GOP operative who’s dedicated her career to electing Republicans,” and a note on her affiliation with conservative groups such as the Independent Women’s Forum, the Heritage Foundation, and the presidential campaign of former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley.

After the report, Fifield told The Free Press that she believes the Times mishandled her allegations, accusing the reporters of spending more effort investigating her politics than any of her claims about Platner. And the Times wasn’t alone. The overwhelming response of Democratic officials and the left-leaning press was to brush aside Fifield’s claims, in part because they distrusted her politics.

Start with New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, who helped launch the #MeToo movement with her reporting on media mogul Harvey Weinstein in 2017, for which she won a Pulitzer Prize. Kantor was interviewed last month about Fifield’s accusations against Platner. Instead of sympathizing with this purported victim, Kantor flatly minimized her. She called Fifield’s claims “very sensational texts about sex,” stressed that they were part of a “consensual relationship,” and said they were unlike “classic” #MeToo allegations—such as harassment allegations against President Donald Trump.

Fifield’s political affiliations were enough for countless left-wing journalists to brush off her claims, or even smear her as a liar. The podcaster and Vanity Fair writer Molly Jong-Fast hosted a Democratic operative on her show who implied that Fifield’s claims had been planted politically.

Democratic officeholders were only slightly less brazen than the press, rushing to wrap their arms around Platner instead of asking more questions and heeding victims’ warnings that more details might come out. After the Times story was published, Senators Bernie Sanders and Ruben Gallego, both of whom were among Platner’s earliest major endorsers, released statements almost immediately vouching for the Maine oysterman’s superb quality as a candidate, as did Rep. Ro Khanna. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said the June report about Platner “seems like a lot of nothing” and dismissed Fifield as “a woman who works for right-wing political operations.” The wrong politics are enough to get an alleged victim of sexual harassment left out in the cold among today’s left.

Platner’s grassroots supporters evidently weren’t too troubled by Fifield’s claims either. The day after the Times story ran, his campaign [raised \(200,000](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/graham-platner-campaign-trail-controversy-maine-rcna348703)—its best 24 hours since his primary opponent dropped out in April. Racicot spoke to *Free Press* reporters Frannie Block and Audrey Fahlberg in the wake of the *Times* story. She had not yet publicly accused Platner of rape, but referred to “a side of him that I had an experience with that caused me to cut off all contact and to not support him as a person.” Racicot also noted a double standard: “I’m watching some people on the left do what they accuse the right of doing, by turning a blind eye to bad behavior by politicians because they support their policies,” she said. “I have seen many people around me who loudly supported the ‘believe women’ movement now having to ignore and make excuses for Graham’s behavior.” When Racicot came forward with her rape allegation Monday, she said she was motivated by disappointment with how the press had handled the previous claims that had been made about Platner. She also spoke with the *Times* for its investigation in June, and though she appears not to have told reporters about her alleged rape on the record, she believes they minimized what she did tell them. “My part of the story was just a read-over,” she told *Politico* about the *Times* treatment. Racicot was also dismayed by the characterization of Fifield as “politically motivated.” After Racicot shared her story this week, Fifield offered even more details on X about how she believes the *Times* deliberately undersold her claims about Platner. [She claimed](https://x.com/lyndseyfifield/status/2074458074983596378?s=20) to have given *Times* reporters “the names of all my former roommates who remembered him stalking our row house (which was about 5 houses down from his) and waiting for me to return. I gave them screenshots of messages between these roommates and I discussing it.” She also said she showed them emails recording how she had moved homes urgently to evade Platner. But none of these details made it into the *Times* report, and she says the reporters [never contacted](https://x.com/lyndseyfifield/status/2074458074983596378?s=20) several witnesses who might have confirmed them. There’s no doubt that Racicot’s claims about Platner are graver than Fifield’s, and naturally compounded the pressure to end his campaign. But even Racicot felt she had to shout her progressive bona fides in order to be taken seriously. She told *Politico* that coming forward was a “huge moral conflict” because she shares Platner’s political views and wanted a Democrat to win the race. “I just want the truth out there. I just want people to have a whole scope of who he is as a person,” she added. If her politics were different, there’s no telling whether Democrats and the media would have taken her claims seriously and abandoned Platner as quickly as they did. In a better-functioning political and media environment, Graham Platner’s candidacy would have ended long ago. After all, this is a man who is trailed by a record of racist and antisemitic social-media posts, and who continues to claim that he only recently learned the nature of the Nazi symbol tattoo on his chest, contradicting several acquaintances who claim he knew much earlier. He has acknowledged cheating on his wife repeatedly, using a dating app to contact at least six other women. He has stretched the truth about his blue-collar credentials, his work as an oysterman, and how he paid for his house. It was only after all of these details were brushed aside by Democrats and the press that Racicot decided to come forward with her rape allegation. You can measure the honesty of a journalist, politician, or anyone else by how they handle the truth at the moment when it costs them the most. Today, a cascade of condemnations are falling on Platner, but few on the left and in the mainstream press have admitted their role in prolonging the crisis, because it was easier to try to discredit a victim whose politics they distrust. They buried the truth about Platner until it forced itself into the light, and cheapened their principles in the process. **CORRECTION:** A previous version of this editorial characterized journalist Glenn Greenwald as questioning whether Lyndsey Fifield, one of Platner’s accusers, was “a brave victim finally confronting her abuser, or a scheming liar with a political agenda.” His statement was actually meant as a hypothetical, critiquing how purported victims are often viewed by others. This has been updated. *The Free Press* regrets the error. s_!AGfq!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa2bed975-8aa1-4a70-bda9-4607ae32bfbd_1320x30.png)