PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Graham Platner, the insurgent Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Maine, will hold his first major campaign rally on Friday night as reports continue emerging about his history with women.
Last weekend, his campaign wrestled with stories about sexually explicit messages that Platner sent to several women while he was married. Then on Thursday, The New York Times reported about his relationships with previous girlfriends. Some viewed him positively but others described him as volatile and insulting.
One woman said Platner twisted her arm during an argument and locked her in a room. Platner called that allegation untrue.
But with Maine's primary around the corner Tuesday and Democrats desperate to rally behind a candidate who can defeat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November, there's been little sign of voters or political allies backing away from Platner, who has pitched himself as an imperfect person who has redeemed himself.
Some dismissed news of the text messages as a private matter, one that should be addressed solely by the married couple. Others argue that the need for Democrats to take back control of the U.S. Senate from Republicans is too important to cast aside imperfect candidates.
Yet they're also wrestling with the question of whether more controversial information surrounding Platner could come out ahead of the November election.
“I think a lot of people are afraid,” said Deb Dagnan, chair of Maine’s Piscataquis County Democrats. “They’re waiting for the other shoe to drop after he gets the nomination. Then what do we do?”
Platner is key to Democrats hopes' to take back the U.S. Senate this year. Yet he's been bedeviled by near-constant controversies involving his disclosure of a since-covered tattoo of a Nazi symbol, his history of inflammatory online comments and the texting revelations.
Nevertheless, Platner's most prominent supporters have continued to back the candidate, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Ruben Gallego. Platner is scheduled to appear in Bar Harbor Friday evening with progressive Rep. Ro Khanna of California, as well as Democratic candidates for U.S. House and governor, as a part of a “get out the vote” rally in the coastal resort town.
The event is taking place just days ahead of the state's June 9 primary election, where Platner is expected to secure the Democratic nomination. His top opponent, Gov. Janet Mills, suspended her campaign in late April.
He'll do so under reignited scrutiny amid reports that he and his wife, Amy Gertner, have had marital difficulties and sought counseling after he allegedly sent sexually explicit text messages to other women.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Gertner had told the campaign in August about the messages, which she had discovered on his phone last year, to make sure they weren’t a liability to the campaign. Platner’s campaign team reportedly decided that the texts were private and being handled by the couple, who were married in 2023.
Genevieve McDonald, a former campaign staffer for Platner, told The Associated Press that the candidate was “sexting multiple women while married” and that “the campaign tried to assess that as an election vulnerability.”
Shortly after the news came out, Platner posted a five-minute video taken by Gertner, who avoided speaking directly about her husband’s reported texts but dubbed the broader coverage as “gossip” and said “being married is hard.”
Gertner's emotional comments about working on her marriage have resonated with some women, who say they are shocked that a former campaign aide would betray someone's trust and the issue should remain between the couple.
“It’s none of my business as far as I’m concerned,” said Joanne Mason, a local Democratic leader from south-central Maine. “And I would hope that people wouldn’t judge any one person on their own private marriage.”
Valerie Tate, a Democrat from Belfast, described Gertner's honesty about trying to work on their mental health and marriage as admirable.
“That is not a scandal,” Tate wrote in an email. “That is integrity. Personal growth is not a disqualification from public life. For many of us, it is precisely what made us worthy of it.”
However, Tate conceded that her mind wasn’t fully at ease. With the public still learning about Platner’s past, there is a chance something could emerge as a dealbreaker for voters.
“Of course, there is that concern as there would be in any race with somebody we don’t know all the dramas and the journeys they’ve been on," she wrote. "Something could come out that would be disqualifying.”
This isn’t the first time Platner has faced questions about his past. He had a tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol, which he had covered up after starting his campaign.
Platner has said he didn't realize the meaning of the tattoo. However, a former girlfriend told the Times he joked about it being a Nazi symbol and called it “my Totenkopf.”
There’s also been much attention on Platner's former Reddit posts, which were dismissive of military sexual assaults and used homophobic slurs, for which he has apologized.
Platner has never held elected office and has fashioned a straight-talking, progressive, populist-style campaign focusing on issues such as income inequality, lack of health care accessibility and the rising cost of housing. In return, he's attracted thousands at his rallies and campaign events and collected millions in campaign funds to further boost his messaging.
Kruesi reported from Providence, Rhode Island.
Graham Platner, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks at an event hosted by Sen. Bernie Sanders in Orono, Maine, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
DIBBINE, Lebanon (AP) — Israel’s air force struck different parts of southern Lebanon on Friday, and its military issued evacuation warnings for nine villages, including one that has been spared much of the destruction and has sheltered thousands of people displaced by the three-month war.
The Israeli strikes killed nine people in six locations in southern Lebanon, the state news agency reported.
Meanwhile, the new warnings forced hundreds of families to flee the village of Anqoun and the area of Aarnaya, on the edge of the predominantly Christian community of Maghdoucheh, near the southern port city of Sidon. Elsewhere, people began to return to their homes to survey the aftermath of fighting between Israeli forces and the Hezbollah militant group.
Wide parts of the south have already been devastated by the war. An Associated Press team traveling in the south Friday saw multiple villages in ruins, including Dibbine, near Marjayoun town, from which Israeli troops withdrew a day earlier.
It was the first time Israeli troops pulled out of an area in southern Lebanon since the latest Israel-Hezbollah war began in early March. U.N. peacekeepers and Lebanese troops were at an entrance of Dibbine, clearing rubble and opening roads.
But the Lebanese army set up barbed wire at one of the entrances, preventing residents from returning yet.
At least one family arrived to search the rubble of its home along the road leading to the village, while the owner of a petrol station in Dibbine looked at his destroyed property and called village residents to report on the destruction he saw from behind the barbed wire.
Israel had warned Lebanese residents against returning to villages in the south, saying the area is still a combat zone.
The current ceasefire agreement calls for Lebanon’s armed forces to take control of security zones in Lebanon from which the militants would be banned. But the latest deal between Israel and the Lebanese government has been rejected by Hezbollah, which demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a strong ally of Hezbollah who has been acting as a mediator on behalf of the group, echoed the militants' demands. In his first comments since the agreement was announced Wednesday in Washington, Berri said that he accepts Hezbollah’s withdrawal from the areas south of the Litani River as long as it coincides with the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.
The river, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the border with Israel, forms the boundary of a 2006 U.N.-established buffer zone in which Hezbollah is banned. Israeli troops have pushed far past the river into southern Lebanon.
Berri added in a written statement that the ceasefire should be “complete and comprehensive,” without any exceptions for land, sea or air, and “without bulldozing and demolishing everything that exists.” He was referring to wide areas that have been demolished by Israeli troops.
The war in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south since March 2, threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a globally important conduit for oil, natural gas, fertilizer and other commodities.
Iran has demanded that any lasting truce extend to Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces elections later this year, wants to press ahead with Israel’s offensive until Hezbollah no longer poses a threat.
In Iran developments, American forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker linked to the Islamic Republic in the Indian Ocean, the U.S. military said Friday.
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command posted on X that the forces boarded the MT Davina, without offering details. U.S. forces around the world have sought to prevent Iran from profiting off its oil and other goods. They have been directed to stop ships tied to Tehran or those suspected of carrying supplies that could help its government.
The U.S. Navy has imposed a blockade of Iran’s ports as part of an effort to force Tehran to open the strait and accept a deal to extend a tenuous ceasefire in the war.
Nearly three hours after Friday's evacuation warnings were issued by the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson, Israeli warplanes struck the Lebanese villages, including Anqoun. About 2,500 people displaced by the fighting were sheltering in Anqoun, the Lebanese news agency NNA reported.
Shrapnel and pieces of missiles were seen in the rubble of homes lining the road into Dibbine. Israeli troops entered the village weeks ago for the first time and were engaged in heavy clashes with Hezbollah fighters in the area. The troops returned this week, before withdrawing Thursday.
The road to Dibbine was dotted with villages entirely emptied of residents and destroyed by Israeli strikes, including Khiam. But no Israeli troops were visible from the road.
Nearby Christian villages were largely untouched, and many of their residents decided to stay. The strategic Beaufort castle, captured by Israel last week, appeared in the distance, with a flag of the Israeli Golani Brigade. Smoke from strikes around the nearby Nabatiyeh city billowed above.
Israeli troops have seized around a fifth of Lebanon, pushing further into the country’s south than at any time since the end of Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation. The latest declared ceasefire came about through U.S.-brokered talks between Israel and Lebanon’s government, which accuses Hezbollah of dragging the country into war and had made efforts to disarm it before the latest hostilities.
On Thursday night, an airstrike in the southern city of Tyre killed three and wounded seven people, including three children and two women, the Health Ministry said.
In northern Israel on Thursday, drone alert sirens sounded in several border communities, including a town where Netanyahu had met earlier with local officials. The Israeli military later said the sirens were triggered by attempts to intercept several drones that hit near soldiers in southern Lebanon. No injuries were reported.
More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since the war began. The fighting has killed at least 29 Israeli soldiers and three civilians.
Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Ben Finley in Washington contributed to this report.
A view of Beaufort Castle, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A Lebanese soldier gestures in front of a Spanish U.N peacekeeper vehicle Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day after Israeli forces withdrew following clashes with Hezbollah fighters. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Spanish U.N peacekeepers patrol at an entrance of Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day after Israeli forces withdrew following intense clashes with Hezbollah fighters. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Lebanese army soldiers stand in front of a house that was destroyed in the recent clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops in Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day after Israeli forces withdrew. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A bulldozer for the Spanish U.N peacekeeper opens a road in front of a house that was destroyed in the recent clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops in Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day after Israeli forces withdrew. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Lebanese soldiers deploy at a road in front of destroyed houses in Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day after Israeli forces withdrew following clashes with Hezbollah fighters. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Spanish U.N peacekeepers deploy at a road in Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day after Israeli forces withdrew following intense clashes with Hezbollah fighters. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
People swim on a public beach as smoke, background, rises from an Israeli airstrike that hit the Qlaileh village, seen from the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
An Israeli flag hangs on a destroyed building in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Thursday June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
