A Coup for the Democrats

What mattered most was always whether Graham Platner would be on the ballot on Election Day

We were so close.

So close to an election season flooded with messaging around the Democrats’ nomination of Graham Platner for Senate. So close to every conversation around every election race including mention of this latest sign of where America’s more left-wing party is centered these days. So close to every mention of every foible of every Republican being rebutted with “But Platner!”

“I’m Graham, and I’m an alcohol… whoops, wrong meeting!”

And it still could happen, at least to some extent. Platner may still refuse to exit the race. But with even Comrade Bernie calling for his exit and the crucial July 13 deadline for replacing him not yet past, odds are high that Platner will be long gone by the time the first mail-in ballots are delivered. Come October, left-partisans will equate Republican efforts to remind voters of Platner’s nomination with the old “Democrats were the party of the Civil War South!” line - an irrelevant callback to ancient history.

The significance of Platner always came down to whether he was actually on the ballot when votes were cast. Not just in Maine, but nationwide. The timing of Platner’s final scandal is a godsend for Democrats; it will spare them nearly all of the electoral consequences of the Platner debacle. Assuming that Platner is indeed replaced on the ballot, there’s even a decent chance that Democrats win the Maine Senate seat after all.

If Platner was genuinely the GOP plant that some suggested he was, then either the GOP fouled it up or Democrats found a way to counter it. This final scandal needed to come out in October, not July, if it was to truly sabotage Democrats.

James Talarico is thrilled by this week’s development, because it creates a reasonable chance that his opponent Ken Paxton (rather than Platner) is the most controversy-plagued candidate left standing when we actually cast our votes.

The timing of news continues to have extraordinary impact on its election consequences. Democrats understand this far better than Republicans, which is why they feel free to do their least popular things in the immediate aftermath of elections. They know that any backlash will fizzle before the next time America votes.

But we were close. Or maybe we weren’t. Maybe this was always the plan - to let Platner coast and pull the rug out from him at the last minute as some sort of scheme to particularly energize the farthest-left voters in the party.

Regardless, it’s likely that Democrats will escape any meaningful repercussions for Platner’s nomination.