Graham Platner, the embattled Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, suspended his campaign on Wednesday amid mounting controversies and growing calls from top Democrats in his home state, in the nation's capital, and across the country for him to immediately quit the race.Platner, a populist Democrat backed last September by progressive champion Sen.Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was challenging longtime Republican Sen.
Susan Collins in a high-profile, combustible and expensive race in Maine, which is one of a handful that will determine if the GOP holds onto its slim Senate majority in November's midterm elections.Platner's exit from the race comes five days before a crucial deadline, which, if he had missed, would have prevented Maine Democrats from replacing him with a new nominee on the general election ballot.The suspension of his campaign took place one month after Platner won a landslide victory in Maine's June 9 Democratic Senate primary, but just two days after an explosive report on Monday afternoon contained an allegation of rape from a woman he previously dated. SCANDAL-PLAGUED PLATNER CAPTURES DEMOCRATIC SENATE NOMINATION DESPITE MOUNTING CONTROVERSIESDemocratic U.S.Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks at his primary election event in Blue Hill, Maine, on June 9.
(CJ Gunther/Getty Images)Maine resident Jenny Racicot, 41, told CNN's Jack Tapper that "by dictionary definition" Platner "raped" her."I thought, here's a man who was drunk and who, by dictionary definition, raped me.And he's blaming drunk women," Racicot said.
"So I just felt like that was a very odd take to have on that.And I also feel like with all of the comments that he made about women, sexual assault, rape, even, um, you know, the comments that he had made that was in The New York Times article about, you know, threatening people with rape, like, why does this person have this issue, like scattered throughout their life, throughout their commentary, like it‘s on their mind?"Racicot also s...