Graham Platner\u2019s insurgent bid for Senate in Maine was gathering steam last summer when his campaign was confronted with some potentially explosive information.<\/p>\n
Mr. Platner\u2019s wife, Amy Gertner, told a senior campaign aide that he had been exchanging sexual messages with multiple other women.<\/p>\n
It was the kind of revelation with the potential to damage the political newcomer just as his campaign to unseat Senator Susan Collins, a Republican, was beginning to resonate with voters, especially in a state where female voters make up a large share of the electorate.<\/p>\n
Mr. Platner\u2019s exchanges with women were confirmed by current and former campaign officials, who gave different accounts of some of the details. Ms. Gertner said the couple, who had married in November 2023, according to the town clerk of Sullivan, Maine, was working through his indiscretions in marriage counseling.<\/p>\n
Genevieve McDonald, a former state legislator who was the Platner campaign\u2019s political director before leaving in October, said Ms. Gertner reached out just days before a big Labor Day rally with Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, and was concerned her husband\u2019s behavior could become a political liability.<\/p>\n
Ms. McDonald said Ms. Gertner told her that her husband had been exchanging sexual messages with as many as a dozen women.<\/p>\n
A current Platner campaign official said Mr. Platner had been communicating with up to six women. The conduct had stopped, the official said, before the campaign launched.<\/p>\n
The current official said that the messages surfaced when Ms. McDonald asked Ms. Gertner if there was anything she wanted to share amid an internal vetting process. Ms. Gertner told the campaign that the couple had dealt with the issue in counseling, according to the official.<\/p>\n
The revelation threatened to add to Democratic anxieties about the state of the Maine race, which the party sees as critical to its chances of winning control of the Senate in November.<\/p>\n
In a statement released by the campaign, Ms. Gertner suggested that she had been betrayed by Ms. McDonald, saying she was \u201cdeeply hurt\u201d and bothered by \u201cthe invasion of our privacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI confided deeply personal details about my marriage to someone I considered a friend,\u201d she said. \u201cI trusted this person with the most private chapter of our lives \u2014 the early days of our marriage before any campaign was on our mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur marriage today is stronger than ever before,\u201d she added. \u201cI know the man I married and the husband he has been to me on the best and the worst days of my life. That hasn\u2019t changed, and it won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Saturday evening, she also released a lengthy direct-to-camera video<\/a> acknowledging that the couple had faced challenges, but saying that \u201cour marriage counselor helps, my personal counselor helps, Graham\u2019s personal counselor helps, and we work on our mental health every day.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo marriage is perfect, and I don\u2019t want a perfect marriage,\u201d Ms. Gertner said. \u201cI want my marriage, and I want to be married to Graham.\u201d<\/p>\n In the video, filmed as she walked outdoors and fended off insects, she said that she thought it was \u201cshameful behavior to spend time and energy and resources on negative ads and negative stories on Graham when all he\u2019s trying to do is improve the lives of people who work for a living.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. McDonald\u2019s account of Ms. Gertner\u2019s discovery of the messages, and her alerting the campaign to them last summer before the rally with Mr. Sanders, was confirmed by another person who was told about the messages at the time. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported<\/a> the existence of the messages on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n Ms. McDonald shared with The New York Times what she said was a screenshot of a text message exchange with Ms. Gertner that started in the early hours of Aug. 27, 2025. Ms. Gertner had sent a message to a broader group, asking someone from the campaign to contact her, and Ms. McDonald offered to talk. In their conversation, Ms. Gertner told her about the messages, which she described as \u201csexting,\u201d according to Ms. McDonald.<\/p>\n \u201cThe United States Senate is not a training ground for redemption,\u201d Ms. McDonald said. \u201cIt is a place for proven leaders with moral clarity and integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. McDonald was one of three campaign officials who resigned in October after revelations about controversial social media posts by Mr. Platner and scrutiny of a tattoo widely recognized as a Nazi symbol.<\/p>\n In the months since then, despite a barrage of headlines about inflammatory remarks Mr. Platner made about women online years ago \u2014 remarks for which he has apologized \u2014 the candidate went on to have a stunning rise to become the presumptive Democratic nominee in one of the nation\u2019s marquee Senate races.<\/p>\n His campaign has become a movement in Maine, and some Democrats are already discussing Mr. Platner, a fiery populist running on his working-class credentials<\/a>, as the future of the party.<\/p>\n Yet as he heads into a tough general election fight against Ms. Collins, the incumbent, some Democrats remain anxious about how Mr. Platner, who acknowledges having a messy personal history, will stand up to scrutiny. It is an issue that voters have already raised with him directly on the campaign trail.<\/p>\n Republicans, for their part, are broadcasting a steady drumbeat of old Reddit posts in which Mr. Platner insulted women, Black people, white rural people and others.<\/p>\n Mr. Platner has spoken openly about struggling for years with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and drinking tied to multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n \u201cI was just a wreck of a human being,\u201d he told The Times.<\/a><\/p>\n He sought therapy and has apologized for some incendiary posts on Reddit, urging Mainers not to judge him for \u201cthe worst thing I said on the internet, on my worst day 14 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n But those online comments have continued to dog Mr. Platner\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n In 2013, he posted that women afraid of rape should not get so drunk that they \u201cwind up having sex with someone they don\u2019t mean to,\u201d a remark for which he has since apologized.<\/p>\n In another post, he responded to a cartoon about sexual assault in the military, dismissing challenges faced by service members who bring claims of rape.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen every whisper of a misplaced hand brings down a feature length film, anyone who actually thinks the military is purposefully covering up rape,\u201d he wrote, \u201cis clearly both an idiot and junior enough in rank or life experience to think it matters.\u201d<\/p>\n In January of 2020, he waded into a debate over whether West Coast Marines were more \u201cchill,\u201d arguing that \u201cthey get to bang LA chicks, whores in TJ, and hit up Vegas,\u201d an apparent reference to Tijuana, Mexico.<\/p>\n Mr. Platner deleted his comment history ahead of his campaign kickoff, though his posts resurfaced anyway.<\/p>\n As the primary heated up, Gov. Janet Mills, his Democratic opponent, seized on his posts, releasing ads featuring women responding to his remarks about rape with disgust.<\/p>\n Mr. Platner apologized for the posts, saying he was \u201chorrified\u201d when he reread them.<\/p>\n \u201cI did not recognize in them myself or the man that I am today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n His campaign organized an online event<\/a> aimed at helping its female supporters talk with their networks about Mr. Platner\u2019s posture toward women, suggesting language they could use to allay the concerns of their friends and family.<\/p>\n And, in the spring, Ms. Gertner, who is on the campaign payroll, began to play a more visible role on the trail. In April, she introduced Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, at a campaign rally in Portland, Maine, highlighting the struggles people in the state face to receive health care, afford housing and operate small businesses.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Maine that we love so much is under attack,\u201d Ms. Gertner said. \u201cAnd I know that he\u2019s the right person to do the job.\u201d<\/p>\n