Senate hopeful Graham Platner of Maine exchanged sexually explicit texts with other women during his marriage, according to information his wife shared with his campaign last year, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported.
Platner, an oyster farmer and former US marine, is Maine’s presumptive Democratic nominee for the US Senate after his main competitor, Janet Mills, suspended her campaign last month. He’s vying to unseat five-term Republican senator Susan Collins in a campaign that’s captured viral progressive attention, while also facing controversy related to dredged-up racist, sexist and homophobic online posts – and a now-covered-up tattoo of a Totenkopf, widely recognized as a Nazi symbol.
After Platner launched his campaign last August before a Labor Day rally with Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, his team reportedly began opposition research on their candidate to uncover any information that could be revealed during his bid for Senate. At that time, his wife, Amy Gertner, shared with the campaign’s then political director, Genevieve McDonald, that she had found sexually explicit messages her husband had sent other women on his phone in the spring of 2025. She and Platner had begun marriage counseling, and the campaign’s aides ultimately decided the messages were a private matter.
In a statement released by Platner’s campaign, Gertner said she was “deeply hurt” by the news that McDonald had shared details of Platner’s text messages with reporters.
“I confided deeply personal details about my marriage to someone I considered a friend,” she said. “I trusted this person with the most private chapter of our lives – the early days of our marriage before any campaign was on our mind.”
“We did the hard work that marriage requires. We went to counseling. We were honest with each other in ways that weren’t easy,” she added. “And we came through it, not in spite of how much we’ve been through, but because of how much we love each other and the life we’ve built. Our marriage today is stronger than ever before.”
“I know who Graham is. I know the man I married and the husband he has been to me on the best and the worst days of my life. That hasn’t changed, and it won’t,” Gertner said.
“The United States Senate is not a training ground for redemption. It is a place for proven leaders with moral clarity and integrity,” McDonald told the New York Times. McDonald was one of three campaign officials who resigned after details of Platner’s tattoo and controversial social media posts were revealed in October.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Platner has an active account on Kik, a private messaging platform sometimes used for sexting. The account is listed under the username phustle0331 and includes a profile picture taken in mirror that shows a shirtless man with a towel wrapped around his waist with tattoos that seem to match those on Platner’s arms.
Platner told the New Yorker last year that he initially met Gertner, an art teacher, through friends before they matched on Bumble, a dating app.
