Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner’s wife told a campaign aide during a vetting exercise last summer that she had previously found “sexually explicit texts with several women” on his phone.
Amy Gertner told the campaign’s then-political director Genevieve McDonald about her husband’s extramarital relationships “to make sure they didn’t pose a risk to her husband’s nascent campaign,” according to the New York Times. Gertner and Platner got married in November 2023.
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The report is the latest in a long list of controversies that have plagued Platner’s bid to unseat incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). The progressive candidate has faced criticism for derogatory, since-deleted social media posts and a controversial tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol.
Platner has been the presumptive Democratic nominee in the race since Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME) dropped out in April. A recent University of New Hampshire poll has Platner up 9 percentage points against Collins in a theoretical matchup.
Gertner said in a statement provided by the campaign that McDonald was a friend. A campaign official said aides decided at the time that the matter was ultimately private and was being handled in marriage counseling. “I know who Graham is,” the statement said. “I know the man I married and the husband he has been to me on the best and worst days of my life. That hasn’t changed, and it won’t.”
Platner’s campaign confirmed the report Saturday night.
In a video uploaded to Platner’s campaign’s X account, Gertner said “Graham and I have a great marriage” and that the couple works on their mental health every day.
Democrats see the race as a key Senate contest in November after Platner’s populist, anti-establishment platform lifted him in the polls. The oyster farmer and former Marine sparred with Collins on Thursday about his serving in the Iraq War, and a since-deleted Reddit comment about the Armenian genocide surfaced Friday. Platner has said his past opinions were due to post-traumatic stress disorder suffered during his time in the military.
A current campaign official said Platner had been speaking with up to six women, but the conduct stopped before the campaign launched. McDonald, who resigned in October, told the New York Times that Platner had been sending messages to “as many as a dozen women.”
Platner’s strategist, Morris Katz, responded to the news by saying on X that there “should be no place in our politics for incompetent, opportunistic operatives who violate privacy, betray trust, and prioritize vengeance over decency,” and that what happened in Platner’s marriage before he was a candidate is no one’s business.
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Gernter confided in McDonald ahead of a Labor Day weekend campaign rally last year with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). In a statement, she said she was “deeply hurt” by McDonald and referenced an “invasion of our privacy.”
Gertner told McDonald about her knowledge of the texts just days after Platner announced his candidacy. The rally occurred as planned.
