BAR HARBOR—At a rally several days before Maine’s primary, Democratic Senate hopeful Graham Platner told supporters he wasn’t the man he used to be.
“If you believe in transformational politics, you have to believe in the ability of people to transform,” he told a large crowd on June 5 in Bar Harbor, a coastal resort town just 20 miles from his campaign headquarters in Ellsworth.
Minutes later, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a vice-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, stood by the leading contender for the nomination at the event—Platner’s first since The New York Times reported on allegations of abuse and “unsettling” behavior from multiple women who dated him. The candidate has disputed some accusations leveled in the article, which was published weeks after absentee voting in the June 9 primary began….