The Democratic groups built to elect women have spent decades hoping to unseat Maine’s five-term Republican senator, Susan Collins. Now, they have a real shot — and to take it, they will have to help a man dogged by allegations about his treatment of women get elected to the U.S. Senate.

The man is Graham Platner, the oysterman and political newcomer whose profile has rocketed to national attention, driven by the combination of his unorthodox background and magnetic stage presence.

That appeal, however, has been shadowed by his conduct toward women. Platner has been accused of writing derogatory posts on Reddit about women and victims of rape (he has apologized for those comments, and asked voters not to judge him by “the worst thing I said on the internet on my worst day 14 years ago”). He has admitted to sexting women other than his wife early in his marriage (which, he said, spurred him to seek counseling). And he has been accused by past girlfriends of demeaning them, including at least one accusation that he physically threatened her, which he has denied.

None of it has been enough to stop his campaign. On June 9, he won Maine’s Democratic primary in a landslide. 

That has left Democratic women in Maine with a choice that, for some, feels like a compromise no matter how they make it: line up behind a man accused of mistreating women, or withhold their support and risk handing a sixth term to the senator many blame for the loss of federal abortion rights.

“Susan Collins is someone who has talked for decades, you know, in her career in the Senate about reproductive rights, has been supported in the past by Planned Parenthood,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “And there is this deep sense of betrayal posed, post the Kavanaugh vote, that she did not stand up when it really mattered.”

Collins voted in 2018 to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Four years later, he was part of the conservative majority that overturned Roe v. Wade. That vote — a raw wound for many women in Maine and beyond — has become a centerpiece of Platner’s attack ads.

“Susan Collins told us she would protect Roe v. Wade,” a narrator says in one recent ad, which hit airwaves after Platner won Maine’s primary. “She was wrong. Now she won’t even admit she was wrong. 

But for some women, the messenger is not unburdened either. 

“Women have been put in a terrible position,” said Walsh. Women “who care both about reproductive freedom but also have strong beliefs about issues around sexual harassment, sexual violence, misogyny … the kind of behavior that we’ve been hearing about from him — it’s a terrible position women have been put in.”

Platner’s campaign did not respond to MS NOW’s request for comment for this article.

For some abortion rights advocates, Platner — who supports codifying abortion rights in federal law and covering reproductive care under Medicare for All — has become the best available vehicle for a closely divided Senate that many hope will expand abortion access nationally after Dobbs. Last week, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund endorsed him after supporting Maine Gov. Janet Mills earlier in the primary. At a news conference, the fund’s president and CEO, Alexis McGill Johnson, characterized Collins as “a fair-weather feminist,” and voiced confidence that Platner would be a strong supporter of abortion rights in the Senate.  

A person at Planned Parenthood Action Fund familiar with the endorsement process told MS NOW that it “felt important” for the organization to back Platner both on the week of the four-year anniversary of the Dobbs ruling and on the heels of Collins’ recent defense of her vote for Kavanaugh. The person, who was granted anonymity by MS NOW to speak freely about the endorsement process, added that Platner sat for an interview with officials at the national organization as well as the board of the local Planned Parenthood before PPAF decided to back him, and that those conversations convinced officials he was worthy of their endorsement.

“Susan Collins has caused a lot of damage,” the person said. “Women have died [due to abortion bans], are going to continue to die, and so for us, there’s just wasn’t an option to not be involved here.”

But Collins’ record was only part of it. Asked whether Platner’s controversies gave the group any pause, the staffer would only say that McGill Johnson emphasized in a direct conversation with Platner the “trust” women place in the organization, and that she asked “for some reassurance around certain things, and he gave us that.”

Not everyone is reassured.

“On one hand, I kind of laugh,” said Darcy Halvorsen, a lifelong Democratic organizer and voter in Maine, of PPAF’s Platner endorsement. “He’s never run for office before, he’s never held an office … he’s never even held a town council seat. And so I kind of laugh because it’s like, how can you be a ‘reproductive champion’? He really hasn’t done anything for choice.”

Other reproductive rights advocacy groups seem to be having a harder time squaring what they see as the need to oust Collins with Platner’s own checkered past. Reproductive Freedom for All — which announced a $23.5 million midterms strategy last week, including backing some Democratic candidates — declined to comment on the Maine Senate race in response to MS NOW’s inquiries. A staffer with All in Action Fund, the political arm of the reproductive justice organization All* Above All, told MS NOW the organization has yet to determine whether it will endorse Platner, due in part to his controversies. 

“We are clearly and narrowly focused on leaders who are committed and fighting for access to reproductive health,” the person said, adding that they also weigh concerns around “integrity and track record.”

Some groups have drawn a harder line. One day after The New York Times published a report in June in which one of Platner’s ex-girlfriends accused him of physically threatening her while they were dating, the National Organization for Women sent an email blast urging voters in Maine to elect Mills in the primary, despite the fact she suspended her campaign in April.

“Feminists who have been working so hard for gender equality and the Equal Rights Amendment have seen this script before — the qualified woman is passed over, the Democratic party rallies around the damaged male ‘star,’ and we are told to be quiet about it for the greater good,” NOW’s statement said. “If a woman had even a fraction of Platner’s record, she would have been forced out on day one.”

Kathy Bonk, the president of the Maine chapter of NOW, said she cast her ballot for Mills, and suggested that the “progressive wing of the Democratic Party” was to blame for “pushing” candidates like Platner “without vetting them.” “If they did vet them and they had that background on women, that’s even worse,” she said.

How a candidate with Platner’s record got that far, that fast, is itself a source of recrimination. The Wall Street Journal reported that Dan Moraff, a progressive strategist and the architect of Platner’s campaign, spurned the typical weekslong background-check process in favor of a faster and more cost-effective option. The fast-track research, the Journal reported, did not uncover many of the controversies that later engulfed Platner’s campaign.

For some, it highlights a more pervasive problem with how male politicians treat women. “It crosses all political parties,” said Deidre Malone, the president of the National Women’s Political Caucus, which endorsed Mills early in the primary season. “When you look at, you know, Platner, but you look at also Eric Swalwell, you look at Tony Gonzales, you know, Cory Mills — I mean, every party, it seems like has some type of scandal associated with either sexual harassment or something … that is inappropriate.” Swalwell, a California Democrat, and Gonzales, a Texas Republican, both resigned from Congress this spring amid sexual misconduct allegations. Both, along with Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., faced House Ethics Committee investigations.

Halvorsen cast her primary ballot for Platner during early voting — before the extramarital sexting allegations became public. 

Asked if she plans to vote the same way in the general election, Halvorsen said she is considering not voting for the first time in her adult life.

“It’s really, it’s damning, I think, of a candidate,” she said. “I wonder about what else, what else there is? Is there going to be something else? Is another woman going to come forward?”

Kevin Frey contributed to this report.

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