Graham Platner’s wife called the media reports that her husband had previously exchanged sexually explicit text messages with several women “shameful” over the weekend, the latest controversy to hit the Maine Democrat’s whirlwind Senate campaign.
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Platner, an oyster farmer and combat veteran, posted a video taken by his wife, Amy Gertner, who reportedly told his campaign of the text messages last year. In the five-minute video, Gertner avoided speaking directly about her husband’s reported texts, dubbing the broader coverage as “gossip” and saying that “being married is hard.”
“I find it really shameful that there’s a group of media outlets and people who are willing to spread gossip,” she said in the informal, selfie-style video where she walked along a road. “No marriage is perfect, and I don’t want a perfect marriage. I want my marriage.”
Platner is seeking the Democratic nomination for one of the most closely watched Senate races as Democrats hope to defeat longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins in the party’s efforts to win control of the narrowly divided Senate. The Maine primary is June 9.
Genevieve McDonald, a then-campaign staffer for Platner, told the The Associated Press that the candidate was “sexting multiple women while married” and that “the campaign tried to assess that as an election vulnerability.”
Platner told reporters Sunday that what McDonald had said wasn’t true. Asked if he was confirming that the text messages didn’t exist, Platner replied, “I’m confirming that what Genevieve McDonald said in the New York Times is not true.”
Platner didn’t provide any specifics. He was referring to a Times story that names McDonald Saturday, after The Wall Street Journal first reported the story. Gertner had told the campaign in August about the messages, which she had discovered on his phone last year, to make sure they weren’t a liability to the campaign, according to the Wall Street Journal. Platner’s campaign team reportedly decided that the texts were private and being handled by the couple, who were married in 2023. The two are in counseling, Gertner has said.
Platner told reporters that he and Gertner spoke with the campaign about their marriage, but reiterated that McDonald’s claims were false. Platner’s campaign on Sunday did not specifically confirm the text messages to the AP, but issued a statement from Gertner saying the disclosure of the conversations she had with a campaign aide was a betrayal that “deeply hurt.”
“I trusted this person with the most private chapter of our lives — the early days of our marriage before any campaign was on our mind,” she wrote.
Graham Platner responds
The couple appeared together Sunday, arm in arm, at a campaign rally in Portland’s largest park, Deering Oaks, according to NBC10 Boston affiliate News Center Maine. They were asked for a statement about the story in the Times and the Journal, to which Platner said on camera:
“It’s no surprise to me that the establishment media outlets are just going to run gossip instead of wanting to talk about the things that actually matter in this race, which are the material realities that Mainers are working with. These people are going to try to make this race about anything but what it’s supposed to be about, which is policy. They never want to talk about policy. Amy and I have a very loving and very happy marriage. They would very much like to try to rip that apart. They’re going to come after us in every awful way they possibly can, and we’re just going to keep talking about the fact that the hospitals are closing, the fact that child care facilities are closing, the fact that teachers and nurses aren’t paid enough, and the fact that everybody down here continues to work harder and longer and get less. But of course, the powers that be do not want us to talk about that, and so they’re going to just do gossip instead.”
Platner denied the reports were true, saying on camera to News Center Maine, “The Wall Street Journal and New York Times ran stories without any evidence besides the gossip from a former staffer. I’m sorry, that’s frankly, journalistic malpractice. We pushed back on it, they did it anyways.”
Gertner did not answers any questions but stood by Platner’s side as he spoke.
News Center Maine also reports that Platner’s campaign confirmed he did have a profile on the messaging app “kik”—seen in a selfie wearing only a towel—with the handle “phustle 0331,” similar to his old Reddit account handle. The campaign reportedly said the “kik” account has not been active for years, and Platner deleted the app from his phone long ago.
Platner provided a written statement to News Center Maine on Sunday, as well, saying, “Amy and I went through something hard—because of me. We did the work, and I’m grateful for her every hour of every day.”
According to News Center Maine, these revelations come one month after a Platner campaign town hall in Sabattus, where the last audience question was from a woman worried about possible skeletons in Platner’s closet. She asked him, “Is there anything you need to share with us from your past?”
In his reply, Platner conceded he had spent a few years after his military service working as a bartender and drinking too much, but denied there was really anything else that needed revealed, News Center Maine reports.
“I’ve never had some kind of like weird, I don’t know, weird relationships with people. I have a lot of ex-girlfriends. They’re all still my friends. Yeah, I spent years kind of just drifting. Honestly, I mean pretty much everything’s been dragged up,” Platner said at the town hall. “In my past, there is not like some big dark secret.”
It’s not Platner’s first controversy
Platner, who has never held public office, has a gruff, less buttoned-up approach on the campaign trail, fashioned a platform around economic equality and has already had to navigate statements that surfaced from his past.
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The candidate had a tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol, which he said he didn’t realize until he was several weeks into the campaign.
There’s also been much attention on his former Reddit posts, which were dismissive of military sexual assaults and used homophobic slurs, for which he has apologized.
Platner’s campaign weathered those earlier revelations in what had been considered one of the most competitive Democratic primaries before Gov. Janet Mills dropped out of the race in late April due to a lack of campaign funds. Mills, a two-term governor, had been seen as one of the Democrats’ top 2026 recruits when she entered the Senate race before her campaign fizzled out.
Platner has still pulled support from big-name Democrats, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Ruben Gallego as well as U.S. House Rep. Ro Khanna. The latter is scheduled to rally with Platner on Friday, and so far, it appears he hasn’t lost any endorsements with this latest texting revelation.
Two Democratic senators on Sunday declined to directly address the topic when pressed by reporters. Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that Platner had served his country and community, but “also made mistakes and he has admitted that.”
On CNN’s “State of the Union,” New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim sidestepped, too.
“With any campaign in the country, the character and the transparency about the different candidates is going to come out,” said Kim, “and the voters are going to decide what they ultimately think.”
Barreling forward Sunday, Platner posted a video on X from an event “happening now” where he entered a room to a standing ovation from ecstatic supporters.
Questions over whether additional controversial information about Platner could still surface have added to some Democrats’ anxiety over his chances in a general election against Collins, who has represented Maine in the Senate since 1997.
In October, after the revelation that he once had a Totenkopf tattoo on his chest and promptly had it covered, the AP asked him if other scandals were on the horizon.
Platner said he was expecting his opponents were “going to keep dragging things up.”
“They’re going to keep making things up,” he said. “I fully expect people to just lie about me at this point.”
Voters are familiar with the couple’s struggles, including with infertility and traveling out of the country to afford IVF treatment, which they’ve discussed on the campaign trail.
In late April, Platner shared that Gertner had suffered a miscarriage, and he’s discussed his own mental health struggles and the role of his family and therapist in helping.
Former aide explains why she went public
McDonald initially worked on Platner’s campaign as his political director and resigned a few months later when his now-deleted Reddit posts began surfacing, saying she couldn’t stand behind him as a candidate. She later declined a severance offer from the campaign in exchange for signing a non-disclosure agreement.
On Saturday, McDonald wrote on Facebook that Platner’s campaign had “demanded” she retract her statements she had made to The Wall Street Journal or his team would accuse her of violating the couple’s trust. McDonald wasn’t named in the newspaper’s article, but after that exchange, she said she made the choice to be publicly named in a New York Times story.
“His consultants greatly overestimate how much I do not aspire to be them,” she wrote on Facebook.
After resigning from Platner’s campaign, McDonald moved to help Democrat Jordan Wood’s congressional campaign in Maine’s second district. McDonald submitted her resignation from Wood’s campaign Saturday morning, according to Wood’s campaign.
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Wood endorsed Platner after Mills dropped out.