- Democratic Senate candidate, Graham Platner, has made his first public appearance since it was revealed he was sexting at least six women while he and his wife were going through IVF.
- Platner, 40, appeared at a campaign event on Sunday afternoon where a room full of people hooted and hollered for the Democrat, who is hoping to upset Susan Collins‘ Republican seat in the Senate.
- The husband and veteran was dressed in a casual polo and jeans, accessorizing with a trucker hat as he stood around people dressed similarly as he said in a post that he was taking his campaign ‘to the front porches of Maine.’
It comes after it was revealed earlier this week that he sent sexually explicit messages to several women last year while he and wife, Amy Gertner, were attempting to conceive a child via IVF.
His wife had told his campaign last year that she had found her husband talking up to 12 women via text, The New York Times reported.
She disclosed the information to Genevieve McDonald, who was Platner’s political director until October, the report added.
Gertner considered McDonald a friend and told her the information right before Platner was supposed to join a rally with Bernie Sanders over Labor Day weekend as she feared it might become a liability, The Wall Street Journal said.
Sanders has doubled down on his endorsement of Platner on Saturday, comparing the Maine oyster farmer to New York City Democratic Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
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Democratic Senate candidate, Graham Platner, has made his first public appearance since it was revealed he was sexting at least six women
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Platner, 40, appeared at a campaign event on Sunday afternoon where a room full of people hooted and hollered
‘In Maine, one of our most rural states, we can do the same thing and elect Troy Jackson as Governor and Graham Platner as Senator,’ he wrote on X.
Platner’s wife has also come out swinging after the information was revealed on Saturday.
Later that evening, Gertner, who has been married to Platner since 2023, called those reports ‘really shameful’ – despite disclosing the information herself.
‘I wanted to make a statement today about a couple of news articles that are out there about my marriage to Graham,’ the 41-year-old said in a video that the politician shared to his campaign page on X.
‘So it makes me really angry, disappointed, and I find it really shameful that there’s a group of media outlets and people who are willing to spread gossip, instead of talking about real issues that Graham is running on, like healthcare and education and childcare,’ Gertner continued.
She went on to insist that she and her husband have a ‘great marriage’ and that they have been struggling with infertility.
‘Graham and I have a great marriage. Being married is hard. Being newly married is hard. Being newly married and going through infertility is hard.
‘Being newly married, going through infertility, and a Senate campaign is hard. I don’t even know if I have the right words to describe what we’ve been going through,’ she added.
Campaign aides had decided the messages were a private matter and the 2025 rally went on as schedule, a campaign official told WSJ.
The couple handled the issue in marriage counseling, and the texts have never publicly been revealed.
Platner insisted he stopped text other women before his political campaign started.