Some Democrats are worried Graham Platner’s sext messages could ruin their chances of retaking the Senate majority, with rumors swirling about potentially even more shoes to drop about the Democratic candidate seeking to oust Maine Sen. Susan Collins in November.

“He has questions he’s got to answer,” Vermont Sen. Peter Welch told NOTUS, adding that a steady “drip drip drip” of negative information about a candidate is “never good.”

“It’s not good, but it’s up to the voters of Maine to decide,” California Sen. Alex Padilla said.

Platner met with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democratic senators in Washington on Tuesday. The meetings were scheduled before last week, but they came as anxiety grows in the party that the candidate might not be able to unseat Collins, a vulnerable Republican who has faced criticism for not doing enough to stand up to President Donald Trump amid a worsening economy and another costly war in the Middle East.

Asked about his meeting with Platner at a news conference on Tuesday, Schumer responded by giving the same terse statement five different times.

“I met with Graham Platner today,” Schumer said. “We’re going to beat Susan Collins and take back the Senate.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had planned to meet with Platner in D.C. prior to the sext messages news. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Platner did not respond to questions from NOTUS after a separate meeting with a group of Democratic senators at the offices of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on Tuesday. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the chair of the committee, was similarly tight-lipped.

“I’m very optimistic we’re going to win Maine,” Gillibrand said.

Platner’s campaign confirmed to NOTUS that he had exchanged sexually explicit texts with multiple women who were not his wife in the first year of his marriage, as reported by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Amy Gertner, Platner’s wife, said she disclosed the texts to a campaign staffer last August during an internal opposition research review, before Platner launched his candidacy. Gertner said the couple had gone through marriage counseling since then and moved on, criticizing the staffer for leaking the existence of the texts to the press.

Platner has struck a defiant tone, blaming “establishment media outlets” for focusing on “gossip” rather than policy issues like health care and income inequality. He also accused his former aide and the news outlets of reporting on her claims about his text message of “journalistic malpractice.”

Graham Platner campaigns in Maine on May 27. Michael Kleinfeld for NOTUS

It’s been hard to pin down Platner over the past few days. His campaign had agreed before the news broke to make the candidate available for an interview with NOTUS on Sunday. That interview never happened. The campaign cited changes to Platner’s schedule.

Republicans have sought to make Platner’s character an issue in the race, spending millions of dollars on ads highlighting offensive social media posts he made years ago and the tattoo of Nazi symbol he got as a Marine serving abroad — one he covered up after he became a candidate. Now they’ve got even more material to work with, allowing them to poke holes in Platner’s explanation that his misdeeds occurred when he was young.

“No one wants Susan Collins to lose more than me. I am for whoever can beat her and I am angry that feels less likely than it was yesterday,” lamented Neera Tanden, a former aide to President Joe Biden, after the new reporting about Platner’s personal life.

Meanwhile, Platner’s most prominent backers in the Senate are standing by him.

“I think it’s important for us to focus on the issues facing working families a little bit more than Graham Platner’s marriage,” Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont told NOTUS. “My understanding is that his wife… is standing by her husband, and I wish their marriage the very best.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders leaves the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee offices where he and other Senators met with Graham Platner on Tuesday. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

It would be difficult for Democrats to nominate someone else with the June 9 primary only days away. Either Platner would have to drop out or Democrats would have to coalesce around David Costello, a little-known candidate who’s polling far behind Platner. And the election is already underway: Early voting started two weeks ago.

Platner’s insurgent, working-class platform has energized voters, pushing establishment-backed Maine Gov. Janet Mills out of the race in April to the dismay of top Democrats in Washington who felt the popular two-term governor was a safer bet. Mills and her allies ran the same playbook against Platner – attacking him over his online history – to no avail. Mills noted in an interview on Monday that she suspended her campaign and didn’t drop out, saying “I am still on the ballot.” However, a source close to Mills told NOTUS they haven’t received any indication that the governor is ramping up her campaign.

Platner, an oyster farmer and combat veteran, has promised to take on corporate elites in both parties in Washington. He’s vowed not to support Schumer as Democratic leader in the Senate, and argued his party must mount a more aggressive congressional opposition to Trump, including denying votes to fund the government and blocking any of the president’s future nominations to the Supreme Court if Democrats win a majority next year.

Appearing at a town hall last week on the southern coast of Maine – the 71st of his campaign – Platner said his grassroots-led approach would not only help flip control of the Senate next year, but help usher in a political revolution across the country that would make it easier to pass progressive proposals like Medicare-for-All.

Graham Platner speaks to voters in Phippsburg, Maine on May 27. Michael Kleinfeld for NOTUS

“We are looking at possibly not just flipping red to blue, we’re looking at flipping red to fighting Democrats. That’s a huge shift,” Platner said in Phippsburg, a small town of about 2,000 people located on the mouth of the Kennebec River.

More than 400 attendees packed into a sweltering elementary school gym to hear from Platner, according to his campaign. A few days earlier, he drew thousands more to a pair of rallies that featured Sanders. Instead of campaign pins, volunteers handed out oyster shells with “Graham for Senate” written on them.

Dressed in a gray work shirt, cap, and denim jeans, Platner told jokes about overcharging tourists for oysters at his oyster farm and talked up New Deal-style programs that would help revitalize the working class. In response to one woman’s question about preventing domestic violence, Platner lamented what he called “a very toxic version of masculinity” that makes men lonely and aggressive, one he said he struggled with before finding help through therapy. The crowd hung on his every word.

Campaign volunteers handed out oyster shells with “Graham Platner” written on them during a town hall event in Maine. Michael Kleinfeld for NOTUS

Voters listen to Graham Platner during a town hall last week on the southern coast of Maine. Michael Kleinfeld for NOTUS

“I’m never looking for a political candidate that says, ‘I’ve done no wrong ever,’ because what would that make me? I’m not that either,” Kyle Drew, 52, a tattooed diving instructor from Woolwich, Maine, told NOTUS before the new reporting on Platner’s sexual text exchanges. “I think there’s a lot of us who have been where he’s been in certain places.”

An 18-year-old recent high school graduate introduced Platner at the town hall with a dismissive comment about the candidate’s many inflammatory posts on Reddit — posts that Platner said he made while suffering from PTSD after returning home from serving in the Middle East.

“I couldn’t care less about social media comments made over 15 years ago,” she told the audience, eliciting a round of applause. “If someone is willing to openly acknowledge a mistake, apologize, and move forward in a different direction, that seems pretty damn good to me.”

Shirley Helms, a 69-year old retiree from Wolloch, who talked to NOTUS before the news of the sexting came out, said Platner’s issues paled in comparison to those of Trump.

“I don’t think anybody’s perfect,” Helms told NOTUS. “And when you look at the person who’s president and all the very negative things about him, I think Platner’s problems are minuscule compared to Trump.”

Maine is one of the Democrats’ best Senate pickup opportunities; Kamala Harris carried the state by seven points in the 2024 presidential election. Platner has edged Collins in recent polls, but those surveys were conducted prior to his latest controversy. Polls have also missed the state’s preferences before, particularly in 2020, when former Maine Speaker of the House Sara Gideon failed to oust Collins after leading in nearly every survey of the race, a costly failure that haunts Democrats to this day.

Collins, 73, is seeking her sixth term. The senator argues that ability to secure federal dollars for Maine as chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee are reasons why voters should stick with her. The post has given her campaign a boost, allowing her to attend countless ribbon-cutting and ground-breaking ceremonies alongside stakeholders in the state, which wouldn’t be possible without the funds she steered home.

Sen. Susan Collins speaks with reporters during the Maine Republican State Convention in April. Matt Junker/The Maine Monitor

“I’ve been able to secure, in the last five years, $1.5 billion for 674 projects,” Collins said last week after helping law enforcement in the town of Auburn, Maine, break ground on a new joint Police and Fire Department building. “With my opponent, that would go away. He would not have the seniority, the experience, the knowledge, or the respect in order to secure that funding. It makes a huge difference to the state of Maine.”

Platner says Collins is trying to “buy off” votes with earmarks. He says the money Collins brings home to Maine hasn’t been distributed equitably, noting that people continue to pay high costs for health care and goods and services. And he alleges Collins’ opposition to Trump is performative and that she does little to block his agenda in Washington.

In an interview with NOTUS in Maine last week, Collins questioned Trump’s strategy in Iran and called the high cost of fuel “a major issue” in her state, particularly for those in rural areas dealing with heating and travel costs.

“People have to drive long distances to get to work to access services, and it makes a big difference when gas prices are so high in where I live, in Bangor,” the senator said.

Of her relationship with Trump, Collins said people in Maine have “distinguished between my record and the record of the president,” adding, “I support the president when I agree with him. I don’t, when I do not.”

Collins and Platner also clashed over Platner’s military service and comments he made about a wounded U.S. soldier. Collins called out one of his deleted social media postsin which he criticized a wounded U.S. soldier in Afghanistan “appalling” and “disgraceful.” She also disputed the notion that she was directly responsible for sending Platner to war in Iraq, as Platner had said in a New York Times interview last month.

“The fact is, that was Platner’s decision to serve,” Collins told reporters. “He was not drafted.”

Platner told reporters her remarks were “callous” and “disgusting.” The Army and Marines veteran, who has said he suffered from PTSD after serving a total of four tours in the Middle East, said Collins voted to keep the war in Iraq going and accused her of laying blame on “all of us who — in our late teens and early twenties — signed up to serve our country.”

Platner’s insurgent, working-class platform energized voters, pushing establishment-backed Maine Gov. Janet Mills out of the race in April. Michael Kleinfeld for NOTUS

The back-and-forth over Platner’s military service was largely overshadowed, however, by the news that Platner had sent explicit messages to other women while married to his wife. Democrats fear more damaging revelations could emerge, but at least for the moment, they’re sticking by Platner, recognizing the huge stakes if their party fails to oust Collins in November.

“I’ve heard some of my colleagues’ concerns about what we’ve read in the papers,” Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who backed Mills, said Monday. “But at the end of the day, we’ve got to win.”

“We all know that he’s lived a very, you know, real experience,” said Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona. “The voters of Maine are going to decide what they’re going to do, but we know that at this point this man can still win the race, and as long as he continues, I think we’ll all be there.”