Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner just got another headache after his former political director wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post describing why she left his campaign.
Genevieve McDonald, a former Maine state representative, started as Platner’s political director in August 2025. She believed Platner “shared the same goal: fighting for the working people of Maine.”
However, she resigned from her position in October after learning about his long history of engaging in disturbing behavior. “Graham Platner is not someone who would be good for Maine or for the country,” she wrote in the piece.
McDonald further asserted that America needs “Leaders who embrace and live the ideals the nation stands for” and that “Platner has shown us that he is not such a leader” because “he exhibits a pattern of dishonest behavior that is impossible to ignore.”
She goes on to list a myriad of scandals associated with the candidate, including Reddit posts in which he made racist remarks about black people and insulted rural voters. She mentioned his Nazi tattoo and his promise that there were “no more skeletons in his closet.” The piece further mentions the recent revelation that he sent sexually explicit messages to over a dozen women even though he is married.
Genevieve McDonald, Graham Platner's former political director, writes about why she left the campaign — and why her concerns about Platner "have only grown." https://t.co/4SOmLHlhqO
— Carine Hajjar (@carinemhajjar) June 8, 2026
McDonald paints an overall picture of a campaign that gaslit her and other staffers, downplaying the severity of Platner’s conduct. He had mentioned to her that he had a tattoo that might be problematic, but did not tell her it was related to the Nazis. Still, she trusted him and did not read his oppo file, until more reports became the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
Days before CNN broke a story about his archived Reddit posts, I was provided a document containing multiple inflammatory posts that were attributed to Platner posting as “P-Hustle.” When the story published, it noted that Platner had suggested online that rural White Americans are racist or stupid. I realized the campaign had not been honest with me. As someone from a real working-class background, I knew this would undermine his cross-party appeal.
Troubling posts kept surfacing. Politico ran a story with his online posts about political violence that were new to me. I started making calls, and someone sent me the full archive of his Reddit account. When his Reddit comments in 2013 downplaying sexual assault were revealed by The Post on Oct. 17, I submitted my resignation and made it public. I would no longer validate Platner.
McDonald further notes that Platner’s campaign offered her $15,000 to sign a non-disclosure agreement, but she rejected the offer. She referred to the team’s reaction to the tattoo as “feigned ignorance.”
The former Platner staffer detailed how she communicated with women who told The New York Times about the candidate’s abusive behavior in their dating relationships.
“Over the past eight months, women have come to me with their own disturbing stories about Platner,” she wrote. “Last week, revelations about his physical mistreatment of women erupted in the Times. I had never met or spoken with Lyndsey Fifield, who spoke to the Times, but I knew about her experience while dating him.”
McDonald took aim at Democratic politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) who have continued to prop up Platner despite his laundry list of scandals. “We have learned to excuse what we should condemn,” she wrote, characterizing this as “one of the deepest problems in American politics today.”