2026-07-07T15:13:13-0400 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻（CBS News）
作者：凯特琳·伊利克 政治记者
凯特琳·伊利克是CBSNews.com驻华盛顿特区的政治记者。她曾供职于《华盛顿考察家报》和《国会山报》，并入选2022年美国国家新闻基金会保罗·米勒华盛顿报道奖学金项目。
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亚伦·纳瓦罗 数字记者
亚伦·纳瓦罗是哥伦比亚广播公司新闻的数字记者。他曾报道2024年大选，还在2021和2022年选举周期担任CBS新闻政治部门的助理制片人。
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2026年7月7日 / 美国东部时间下午3:13 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
华盛顿 —— 缅因州联邦参议员候选人格雷厄姆·普拉特纳因面临性侵犯指控，若决定退选，民主党人正面临更换候选人的最后窗口期。
本次选举事关今年全美关注度最高、竞争最激烈的参议院席位之一，民主党全国委员会正力争阻止共和党议员苏珊·柯林斯连任第六届任期。
普拉特纳正承受来自缅因州民主党和全国民主党高层的巨大退选压力，民主党参议院竞选委员会也已明确表示不会为其竞选投入资金。就在缅因州一名曾与他约会的女性珍妮·拉西科特向《政客》和CNN爆料普拉特纳2021年对其实施性侵犯后不久，普拉特纳的竞选支持率大幅下滑——普拉特纳已于周一否认了该项指控。
此前，普拉特纳曾因多起丑闻仍坚持参选，包括被指控发送露骨色情短信、对女性有不当行为，被曝光曾在Reddit上发布有问题的帖子，以及承认自己曾有一个与纳粹标志高度相关的纹身。普拉特纳否认了所有行为不端的指控，但为自己过往的许多言论道歉，称其源于服兵役期间的创伤后应激障碍。
普拉特纳该如何被替换？
根据州法律，普拉特纳需在下周一一，即7月13日前退出竞选并将自己的名字从大选选票上移除。若他在此前退选，缅因州民主党可替换其候选人资格，但必须在7月27日下午5点前做出决定。
“若某政党在截止日期前为大选更换提名候选人，”法律条文显示，“州务卿将印制新的大选选票，或对已印制的大选选票进行修改或补充。”
州法律并未明确规定政党应如何选择替代候选人。缅因州沃特维尔科尔比学院的政治学教授丹·谢伊表示，缅因州民主党可能会召集党内官员举行某种形式的提名大会。但该流程的具体细节、哪些人有权参与仍不明朗——而民主党需要尽快做出决定。
“我猜他们会尽力做到公开、民主，所以这场提名会公开、民主且高效，”谢伊在接受CBS新闻采访时表示，“但这三者通常很难兼顾。”
缅因州民主党尚未公布其选拔新候选人的计划。 executive director德文·墨菲-安德森在周二的一份声明中表示，若需要提名新候选人，整个过程将“公开、透明且包容”，并会“让缅因州民众和民主党选民广泛参与”。
谢伊称，缅因州政坛史上似乎从未出现过突然需要替换全州公职候选人的情况。但两年前，民主党曾面临类似困境：前总统乔·拜登退出连任竞选，时任副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯接替了他。
“我认为缅因州民主党人正牢记……卡玛拉·哈里斯提名过程中引发的争议——那次过程非常仓促、流程被大幅压缩，”谢伊说道。
谁有可能接替普拉特纳？
目前尚不清楚民主党会选择谁来接替上月以72%得票率赢得党内初选的普拉特纳。他在民主党参议院提名竞选中的主要对手是即将卸任的州长珍妮特·米尔斯，但米尔斯已于初选前暂停了竞选活动，目前尚不确定这位78岁的两届州长是否有意重返角逐，或是被视为热门人选。
缅因州州长竞选的民主党初选候选人阵容更为庞大，一些缅因州政治观察人士告诉CBS新闻，在该选举中失利的几位候选人可能会成为接替普拉特纳参选参议员的热门人选。这些候选人包括缅因州州务卿申娜·贝洛斯、前州参议院议长特洛伊·杰克逊以及前缅因州疾病控制与预防中心主任尼拉夫·沙阿。前州众议院议长汉娜·平格赢得了州长初选。
贝洛斯、杰克逊和沙阿均呼吁普拉特纳因性侵犯指控退选。
杰克逊曾是普拉特纳的盟友，其州长竞选得到了佛蒙特州独立参议员伯尼·桑德斯的支持。他对《班戈每日新闻》表示：“如果格雷厄姆退出，我非常、非常感兴趣，并且认为我是接替他的最佳人选。”
周二，杰克逊已向联邦选举委员会提交文件，筹备成立联邦参议院竞选探索委员会，这将允许杰克逊在正式宣布参选前开始筹集资金并评估参选支持率。该消息最先由《班戈每日新闻》报道。
沙阿也表现出了参选兴趣，他在一份阐述其部分竞选纲领的声明中表示，其团队“已收到数百条鼓励信息”。沙阿主张，新的参议院候选人应通过“透明、公开”的程序选出，且至少应举行一场电视辩论。
其他知名缅因州民主党人士包括温和派众议员贾里德·戈尔登，他自2019年以来一直代表倾向共和党的第二国会选区，但已决定不再寻求连任；州参议员乔·巴尔达奇和前众议院工作人员乔丹·伍德，两人均曾角逐接替戈尔登的民主党提名，但最终输给了审计员马特·邓拉普。（巴尔达奇已表示无意接替普拉特纳。）
一些在性侵犯指控曝光前曾支持普拉特纳的全国进步组织主张，下一任候选人应在政治立场和局外人形象上与普拉特纳保持广泛一致。
“对民主党建制派来说：这不是你们插手的机会，”我们的革命组织执行主任约瑟夫·吉瓦格塞于周一晚间写道。该组织的根源可追溯至桑德斯2016年总统竞选活动，它特别警告不要挑选像米尔斯这样的“现状候选人”。
进步变革竞选委员会联合创始人亚当·格林在周一的一份声明中表示，缅因州民主党应提名一位“撼动体制的经济斗士，敢于挑战强大利益集团”。他补充道，这项决定不应由“一小撮党内内部人士”做出。
但巴尔达奇在社交媒体上辩称，新的民主党候选人“必须是在立场上独立于普拉特纳的人，否则选民会将其视为普拉特纳的门徒”。
缅因州民主党表示，普拉特纳无权参与选择其替代人选，并写道：“在任何情况下，候选人都不可能由个人竞选团队选定。”
民主党仍有击败苏珊·柯林斯的机会吗？
民主党候选人将在11月与柯林斯对决。柯林斯是一名温和派共和党人，长期以来一直让这个蓝色州的对手感到头疼。2020年，尽管拜登在缅因州以9个百分点的优势获胜，柯林斯仍以8.6个百分点的差距击败民主党候选人萨拉·吉迪恩；而6年前，柯林斯以超过30个百分点的优势击败了贝洛斯。柯林斯目前在权力强大的参议院拨款委员会任职，她的竞选活动通常会重点宣传自己为缅因州争取到的联邦资金。
南缅因大学政治学教授罗纳德·施密特表示，无论最终的民主党候选人是谁，柯林斯都“极难被击败”。
“柯林斯参议员非常、非常擅长竞选连任，”施密特说，“她拥有一批支持者，尽管他们不一定属于她的政党，也不一定非常喜欢她，但他们认为她能胜任这份工作，所以会一次又一次地投票给她。”
施密特认为，即使民主党需要在最后一刻替换普拉特纳，他们仍有可能对柯林斯发起有竞争力的挑战，但他同时表示，民主党能否“凝聚起所需的能量，实现击败苏珊·柯林斯所需的高投票率”仍是一个未知数。
谢伊表示，他认为普拉特纳退选可能会增加击败柯林斯的可能性。他指出，许多缅因州选民“希望更换柯林斯”，并认同普拉特纳的政治观点，但“对格雷厄姆·普拉特纳的人品存在诸多担忧”。
“我的感觉是，这或许是因祸得福，”他说道。
芬·丹尼尔·戈麦斯和加布·卡明斯基对本文亦有贡献。
Who will replace Graham Platner if he drops out? Here’s how Democrats could pick a new Maine Senate nominee.
2026-07-07T15:13:13-0400 / CBS News
By Caitlin Yilek Politics Reporter
Caitlin Yilek is a politics reporter at CBSNews.com, based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked for the Washington Examiner and The Hill, and was a member of the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship with the National Press Foundation.
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Aaron Navarro Digital Reporter
Aaron Navarro is a CBS News digital reporter. He covered the 2024 elections and was previously an associate producer for the CBS News political unit in the 2021 and 2022 election cycles.
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July 7, 2026 / 3:13 PM EDT / CBS News
Washington — Democrats are facing a rapidly closing window to replace Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner on the ballot amid a sexual assault allegation — if he decides to drop out.
At stake is one of the most closely watched and heavily contested Senate races of the year, as national Democrats seek to deny Republican Sen. Susan Collins a sixth term.
Platner is under immense pressure to drop out of the race from the Maine Democratic Party and top national Democrats, and a vow from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee not to invest in Platner. Support for his campaign collapsed shortly after a Maine woman he previously dated, Jenny Racicot, told Politico and CNN that Platner sexually assaulted her in 2021 — an allegation Platner denied Monday.
He’s remained in the race following earlier scandals, including allegations of sexually explicit texts and concerning behavior toward women, revelations that he had made problematic posts on Reddit and his admission that he once had a tattoo widely associated with a Nazi emblem. Platner has denied allegations of misconduct but apologized for many of his past comments, citing PTSD stemming from his military service.
How could Platner be replaced?
Under state law, Platner has until next Monday, July 13, to withdraw from the race and remove his name from the general election ballot. If he withdraws before then, the Maine Democratic Party can replace him on the ballot, but it must make a decision by July 27 at 5 p.m.
“If a political party makes a replacement nomination for the general election by the deadline,” the law says, “the Secretary of State shall produce new general election ballots or amend or supplement general election ballots already printed.”
State law does not delineate how the party should choose a replacement. The Maine Democratic Party would likely gather party officials for a nominating convention of some form, said Dan Shea, a political science professor at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. But details on how that process would work or who would get to participate remain hazy — and the party will need to decide quickly.
“My guess is, they’ll do the best they can to make it open and democratic. So it’s going to be open and democratic and very efficient,” Shea told CBS News. “Those don’t usually go together.”
The Maine Democratic Party has not yet disclosed its plans for picking a new nominee. In a statement Tuesday, Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson said if a new nominee is needed, the process would be “open, transparent, and inclusive,” with “broad participation of Mainers and Democratic voters.”
In Maine politics, the sudden need to replace a nominee for statewide office appears to be unprecedented, Shea said. But national Democrats struggled with a similar dilemma two years ago, when former President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid and was replaced by then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I think Maine Democrats are keeping in mind some of the controversy surrounding the … very narrow process leading to Kamala Harris’s nomination — the very quick, truncated process,” Shea said.
Who might replace Platner?
It’s unclear who the party might choose to replace Platner, who won last month’s primary with 72% of the vote. His top rival for the Democratic Senate nomination was outgoing Gov. Janet Mills, but she suspended her campaign before the primary election, and it’s not certain that the 78-year-old two-term governor is interested in reentering the fray or would be viewed as a top contender.
The Democratic primary for governor was far more crowded, and some watchers of Maine politics told CBS News a few of the candidates who came up short in that race could be near the top of the list to replace Platner as Senate nominee. Those candidates include Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former state Senate President Troy Jackson and former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Nirav Shah. Former state House Speaker Hannah Pingree won the gubernatorial primary.
Bellows, Jackson and Shah all called on Platner to drop out due to the sexual assault allegation.
Jackson — a former Platner ally whose gubernatorial bid was backed by independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont — told the Bangor Daily News that “if Graham’s stepping away, I am very, very interested and think I’m the best person to replace him.”
On Tuesday, Jackson filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to form a U.S. Senate exploratory committee, which allows Jackson to begin raising money and gauge support for a potential Senate run without formally declaring his candidacy. The news was first reported by the Bangor Daily News.
Shah has also shown interest in running, saying his team has “received hundreds of encouraging messages” in a statement that laid out parts of his platform. Shah argued a new Senate nominee should be chosen through a “transparent and open” process with at least one televised debate.
Other high-profile Maine Democrats include moderate Rep. Jared Golden, who has represented the red-leaning 2nd Congressional District since 2019 but decided not to run for reelection, along with state Sen. Joe Baldacci and former House staffer Jordan Wood, who both sought the Democratic nomination to replace Golden but lost to Auditor Matt Dunlap. (Baldacci has said he isn’t interested in replacing Platner.)
Some of the national progressive groups that supported Platner before the sexual assault accusation came to light have argued the next nominee should broadly share Platner’s politics and outsider image.
“To the Democratic establishment: this is not your opening,” Our Revolution Executive Director Joseph Geevarghese wrote Monday evening. The group, which has its roots in Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, specifically warned against picking a “status-quo candidate” like Mills.
Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said in a statement Monday the Maine Democratic Party should nominate a “shake-up-the-system economic fighter who challenges powerful interests.” He added that the decision shouldn’t be left to a “small caucus of party insiders.”
But Baldacci argued on social media the new Democratic candidate “has to be someone who is independent minded from Platner, otherwise they will be viewed by voters as a protege.”
The Maine Democratic Party said Platner would have no role in choosing his replacement, writing: “In no scenario is there a legal possibility for a nominee to be selected by an individual campaign.”
Do Democrats still have a chance of beating Susan Collins?
The Democratic nominee will face Collins, a moderate Republican who has long vexed her opponents in the blue-leaning state, in November. In 2020, she defeated Democratic nominee Sara Gideon by an 8.6-point margin even as Biden won statewide in Maine by nine points, and six years earlier, Collins defeated Bellows by more than 30 points. Collins sits on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, and her campaigns usually zero in on the federal funding that she has secured for Maine.
Ronald Schmidt, a political science professor at the University of Southern Maine, said he thinks Collins will be “very difficult to beat” regardless of the eventual Democratic nominee.
“Sen. Collins is very, very good at running for reelection,” said Schmidt. “She’s got a group of people who, although they aren’t necessarily in her party or … aren’t necessarily huge fans of hers, think she can do the job, and so they vote for her again and again and again.”
Schmidt believes Democrats could still mount a competitive challenge to Collins even if they need to swap out Platner at the last minute, though he said it’s still an open question whether the party can “summon up the energy they need to get the big turnout that it would take to dislodge Susan Collins.”
Shea said he thinks an exit by Platner could make defeating Collins more likely. He argued that many Maine voters were “interested in making a change” from Collins and agreed with Platner’s political views, but “worried a lot about Graham Platner’s character.”
“My sense is that it may be a blessing in disguise,” he said.
Fin Daniel Gómez and Gabe Kaminsky contributed to this report.
