For conservatives who want the GOP to maintain a majority on Capitol Hill, Graham Platner is the gift that keeps on giving.
The US Senate candidate from Maine has already faced serious backlash over a Nazi-linked tattoo, disparaging remarks about military service members, and a host of off-color comments that resurfaced from a now-deleted Reddit account.
And this weekend saw another scandal added to the mix, this time reportedly coming from his wife.
As The Hill reported:
The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal on Saturday reported that his wife Amy Gertner told former senior campaign staffer Genevieve McDonald about sexually explicit messages she had discovered on his phone early in their marriage.
Gertner reportedly shared this information with the staffer days before a major Labor Day rally with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), warning that the behavior could be a political liability.
It was also reportedly disclosed during the campaign’s internal vetting process for Platner, but campaign staffers ultimately decided that the messages were a private matter that the couple was addressing through counseling and would not pose a threat to his campaign.
Current and former aides offered differing accounts about the scope of the communications, with McDonald telling the Times it was as many as a dozen women while a current campaign official reportedly saying it was up to six.
The latest controversy surrounding Platner’s campaign quickly began fueling social media discussion:
This dude is sounding like a wonderful human being, I hope he has his political sites on the White House because this exactly the type of person we need running the nation 🇺🇸 #Platner2028
— Christopher (@ChrisHollo637) May 30, 2026
Graham Platner is a democratic socialist in the streets and a national socialist in the sheets. pic.twitter.com/aedeZjsSTo
— kate (@kateharperx) May 30, 2026
The left will still vote for him saying "he's the lesser of two evils" and excuse his behavior. But demonize others on the right for much less.
— Josman (@TheDadspective) May 30, 2026
Here’s some additional coverage from the New York Post:
Platner, who once boasted of his “flexible moral compass” regarding cheating on one’s wife in a 2019 Reddit post, had a Kik account named phustle0331, the Wall Street Journal reported. And Platner’s wife even flagged to campaign staffers that she discovered he was sexting with numerous women, according to the outlet.
ADVERTISEMENTAmy Gertner told Platner campaign aides that she discovered the sexually explicit messages in late spring 2025 – the pair married in 2024.
She told staff in August about the messages out of fear they could become an issue during the campaign.
In never-before-seen pictures from the account, Platner is seen wearing only a towel with his entire bare torso and multiple tattoos visible.
Here’s what his GOP rival, incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, had to say about him recently:
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