Platner drops out of crucial Senate race after bombshell rape allegation torpedoes campaign

By Fox News · Fox News

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. "For the movement to continue, it can’t be me. For that reason, we are suspending campaign operations," Platner said in a video posted to social media. 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 CONTROVERSIES Addressing those allegations, Platner said, "This is all false. The things that have been claimed did not happen. It is not real." And Platner, who has run an outsider, anti-establishment campaign for nearly a year, pointed to the political class and argued, "the brutal political reality is they are going to take everything away from us." "Those in power who have the ability to do so are using these allegations as an excuse to take away all the things that we need to run a campaign," he charged. The allegation that triggered Platner's exit from the race came from Maine resident Jenny Racicot, 41, who told CNN's Jake Tapper that "by dictionary definition" Platn…