In a CNN interview broadcast on July 6, a 41-year-old Maine woman named Jenny Racicot told Jake Tapper that Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner showed up drunk at her home in late 2021, entered through an unlocked door after she'd texted him not to come, and raped her. A sewing cabinet was knocked over during the assault, leaving a needle stuck in her leg.

"Complying is not consenting," Racicot said.

Within hours, virtually every major Democrat who'd endorsed the oyster farmer–turned–Senate candidate hit the eject button. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, issued a joint statement calling the allegations "incredibly disturbing" and announcing the DSCC "will not invest in the Maine Senate race if Platner remains on the ballot." Senator Elizabeth Warren, who once gushed about Platner on a podcast — "That's my kind of man!" — reversed course entirely, stating that "the best path forward is for Graham Platner to step aside as the Democratic nominee and address these serious allegations outside this Senate race."

The Maine Democratic Party disavowed the campaign. Senators Ruben Gallego and Martin Heinrich pulled their endorsements. Representative Ro Khanna bailed. Senator Ed Markey bailed. Leftist podcaster Hasan Piker bailed.

One prominent Maine Democrat didn't.

Stephen King — horror novelist, prolific tweeter, and apparently a man whose judgment is confined to fiction — posted on X: "Graham Platner may drop out. (I hope he doesn't, but.) Meanwhile, the Abuser in Chief just keeps on keepin' on." In one sentence, King managed to minimize a rape allegation, take a shot at the sitting president, and confirm that for some people the letter next to your name matters more than the accusation next to your face.

Platner denied the allegation. "Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false," he said. His campaign manager, Ben Chin, released a more carefully worded statement: "Regardless of the accuracy of the reporting, we recognize the political reality of what this moment means and the uncertainty it creates." Platner has until 5 p.m. on July 13 to decide whether to stay in the race. Democrats have until July 27 to name a replacement.

This isn't the first time Platner's past caught up with him. A New York Times story in June 2026 featured three women describing what the paper called "unsettling" and toxic behavior — though none alleged assault. Before that, reporting surfaced a chest tattoo linked to Nazi imagery, social media posts praising Hamas military tactics, and a comment about a wounded Purple Heart veteran named Teddy Daniels that read: "Dumb mother---er didn't deserve to live. Poor marksmanship on the Taliban's part." Platner attributed the posts to PTSD from military service and personal depression. "I don't want you to judge me on the dumbest thing I ever wrote on the internet," he said at the time.

Warren endorsed him anyway. She called him her kind of man after the Nazi tattoo surfaced. After the Hamas praise surfaced. After the death wish on a wounded veteran surfaced. The rape allegation was the line — not because the party suddenly discovered standards, but because the political math stopped working.

Recall the Kavanaugh hearings. We were told to "believe all women." Christine Blasey Ford's accusation — with no corroborating witnesses, no specific date, no police report — was treated as dispositive. Senators wept on camera. Protesters screamed in the halls. The standard was absolute: the accusation is the evidence.

Racicot's allegation is more specific. She named a date range — November or December 2021. She described the unlocked door, the sewing cabinet, the needle. She identified the location. She never went to police, but she cut off all contact afterward. And the party's response wasn't "believe all women." It was a political calculation delivered in the language of concern.

The Maine Senate seat was supposed to be the Democrats' best pickup opportunity of 2026 — their shot at flipping Susan Collins's old seat. That math is what drove the endorsements, and that math is what killed them. Warren didn't call Platner "my kind of man" because she vetted him. She called him that because he could win.

King is still out there, hoping Platner stays in. The party that built a movement around believing accusers now has a nominee accused of rape, a horror writer defending him, and a deadline thirteen days away.

The scariest thing Stephen King ever wrote wasn't in a novel.