Dem activists who conducted a rushed vetting process seem more interested in attacking party status quo than finding a candidate who lacks baggage overload

Graham Platner faces crumbling support among Democrats (NY Times)

Democratic Party operatives conducted an unusually speedy and cheap vetting process on Graham Platner, U.S. Senate candidate from Maine. That process unearthed some of the troubling events in Platner's past but missed others. What appears to have been a slipshod examination of Platner's background has come back to bite the party after a former girlfriend accused Platner of rape, leading Democratic power brokers to call for Platner to step down -- even threatening to withhold funds for his campaign if he refuses to exit. Perhaps most importantly, the cratering of Platner's support threatens to dash Democratic hopes of taking over the U.S. Senate in the November midterms.

According to a report at Yahoo! News, based on reporting from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and written by a reporter from Fox News Digital, vetting has become an increasingly important part of political campaigns. In an age of 24-hour media coverage, parties want to make sure that candidates have not displayed the kind of poor judgment or made insensitive statements that, if uncovered, might cause their campaigns to implode. That lesson apparently was lost on the three activists -- Dan Moraff, Leanne Fan, and Morris Katz -- who have been credited (or perhaps blamed) for handpicking Platner. 

Under the headline "Platner's three-day vetting job comes back to haunt Dems as rape allegation rocks Senate bid," Robert Schmad, of Fox News Digital, writes:

Democratic operatives reportedly commissioned a brief, low-cost background check on Graham Platner before launching his Senate campaign, a decision that appears to be backfiring as new allegations and controversies engulf the candidate and Democrats call on him to drop out.

Candidate vetting, which has become standard practice in high-stakes elections, is a process that often takes several weeks and tens of thousands of dollars to properly complete. Democratic strategist and top Platner staffer Dan Moraff, however, paid just $6,250 for a background check on Platner that took only three days, sources familiar with the process told The Wall Street Journal.

Vetting processes are undertaken to help ensure prospective elected officials don’t have personal baggage that could, if discovered, derail their candidacy. 

Platner's candidacy became messy shortly after he announced his campaign in August 2025, and it has only grown messier as the months passed.  Schmad writes:

Platner faces a rape allegation from one former girlfriend and separate allegations of abusive behavior from another, all of which he denies. The Maine Senate hopeful has also faced scrutiny over a Nazi-linked tattoo that he got during his time in the Marine Corps, as well as sexually explicit texts he sent to other women while he was married.

While these issues didn’t come up in the brief risk-assessment memo produced for Platner’s campaign, some controversial items that have since been reported did, The Wall Street Journal reported.

"The firm sent us a thing and it had some of the posts, but it didn’t have all of them," Moraff told The Wall Street Journal, referencing Platner’s now-deleted Reddit posts.

Using the since-deleted Reddit account, Platner denigrated members of the United States armed forces, going as far as to state that one wounded veteran deserved to die due to his conduct under fire. He also made comments alluding to familiarity with prostitution and hard drugs, as well as expressing support for political violence and socialism. 

Platner has since apologized for the posts, attributing them to psychological trauma incurred during his time in the military as well as the gruff culture he became accustomed to while serving as an infantryman. 

In trying to stand behind Platner, at least one Democratic activist made statements that some voters might find off-putting, Schmad writes:

When asked by The Wall Street Journal what he thought when initially shown the posts, Moraff said he told Platner "none of this will or should stop you from becoming a US senator." 

In light of recent events, it's not hard to imagine some would-be voters responding, "Maybe you shouldn't be so sure about that."

With a law degree from Yale University, Moraff clearly is not a dummy. But he seems to have a tin ear that might be a liability in today's environment. Schmad writes about more of Moraff's questionable statements:

"If what the voters wanted were people who were grown in vats and had never done or said anything that they might regret their entire lives, we’d have a very different country," Moraff continued. "Part of our thesis here is that people do not want their candidates grown in vats. They want people who are real human beings and they want people who do not look and sound like the lab-grown people who’ve been leading this country off a cliff."

A Platner campaign official told The Wall Street Journal that they didn’t have the resources to pay for a more thorough vetting of Platner, claiming that even a more robust background check would not have turned up any additional useful information about him. The background check did not include interviews or require Platner to fill out a questionnaire, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Speaking of The WSJ, its reporter, Aaron Zitner found that Moraff is not the only activist in Platner's orbit with a tendency to make off-center statements that might not play well on Main Street. Fellow activist Morris Katz seems to be on the same wavelength:

"To me, the biggest risk the Democratic Party can take is continuing to do things the same way it's done, that have ended us with a House minority, a Senate minority, and a second term of Donald Trump," Katz said. "And I think we cannot be the party that is the party of the establishment, the party of the institution."

He continued, "So, you know, constantly in the position of, 'Hey, we know you're being screwed by everyone in power, but let us just tinker around the edges there, and eventually it will get better.' That's an incoherent electoral strategy, and it's failed to actually make things better to the degree they need to get better. And so I think there's far less risk in running someone like Graham Platner than in running the same playbook."