Platner Denies Hurting Ex-Girlfriend and Says He Will Not Quit Senate Race

Graham Platner, the presumptive Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, appeared Thursday night in his first interview since a New York Times report about his treatment of several women he had dated, denying one woman’s account that he had physically harmed her and saying he would not drop out of the race.

In a nearly 25-minute appearance on MS Now’s “All In With Chris Hayes,” Mr. Platner said that he would “absolutely” take responsibility for elements of his personal history. He described a history of self-medicating, and a pattern of “not exactly acting with the best behavior” after his service in the military.

But he reiterated that any allegations that he had behaved violently toward a girlfriend were “simply not true.”

“In this piece, there’s a lot about my struggling, not being a good boyfriend, certainly self-medicating with alcohol,” Mr. Platner said. “And I have been very upfront since the beginning of this campaign that that was a pretty dark period of my life after I came back from my combat service.”

And Mr. Platner, whose primary is just five days away, said he had “not once” considered leaving the campaign in Maine, which is considered key to Democrats’ efforts to win back the Senate in the midterm elections.

Hours earlier, The Times reported that Lyndsey Fifield, a 40-year-old Virginia conservative who has worked for Republican campaigns and right-leaning groups and dated Mr. Platner roughly from 2013 to 2015, recalled that he regularly grabbed her by the shoulders. She said he once twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she could not get out, telling her to remain there until she calmed down. He never hit or punched her, she said.