Platner calls sexual assault allegations ‘all false’ as he drops out of Senate race; Maine Democrats to choose new nominee – as it happened

Graham Platner ends Maine Senate campaign after sexual assault allegation Maine contenders: the Democrats who could replace Graham Platner In a video statement posted online Wednesday night, Graham Platner, the Democratic nominee for the US Senate from Maine, said that he was dropping out of the race, while strongly denying sexual assault allegations, calling them “all false”. “The things that have been claimed did not happen, it’s not real,” Platner said at the start in an 11-minute statement in which he went on to argue that the allegations had been made to drive him from the race before a deadline next week when it would have been too late to replace him on the November ballot. Later in the statement, Platner suggested that he had been robbed by the party’s establishment and donors which withdrew crucial support before he had a chance to fight the allegations. “We went toe to toe with one of the most entrenched political systems in the history of the world and we won,” Platner said of his victory in the Maine Democratic primary over the state’s governor, Janet Mills. “We beat them on June 9th in overwhelming numbers. We did it the right way: we built a campai