Both Sanders and Khanna were outspoken Platner supporters, while Ocasio-Cortez remained noncommittal. Sanders and Khanna both withdrew their endorsements and called on Platner to drop out of the Maine Senate race after the latest accusations. 

“I think that is, frankly, an election for the people of Maine,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters on the day of the June 9 primary, as Platner was facing allegations of mistreating women that seemingly stopped short of sexual assault. “What their results, and the ways that they turn out today, I think, will speak for themselves and their preferences…. It’s an election that’s up to the people of Maine and the choices that they have before them.”

Not Churchillian eloquence, exactly. But it sounds better in retrospect than Khanna’s pre-primary defense of Platner after the New York Times report on his treatment of ex-girlfriends.

“Here you have a case,” Khanna told CBS’s Face the Nation last month, “of someone who had a dark chapter in his life, was in toxic relationships, was ashamed about it, who served this country, and the Maine voters are saying, ‘Look, let’s give him some grace, and his focus is stopping these wars, and it’s getting national health insurance, and it’s taking on economic inequality.’”

“I want to be clear: His actions were misogynistic, they were shameful, they were wrong, but they didn’t come as a surprise to a lot of the folks in Maine,” he added. “People in Maine knew that he had had two tours of duty in Iraq. He came back broken in a dark place. That doesn’t excuse his behavior, but they knew this. He was in Washington, and then he went back to Maine, and he started an oyster farm. He took accountability. He himself has said it was shameful.”

Khanna did attach conditions to his support. 

“If there was evidence of violence. I would not support him,” he said. “If there was evidence of sexual assault, I’d have zero support for him. He acknowledges that he was misogynistic. It was shameful. One thing I want to make very clear: we should not be attacking the women who came forward. We should not be attacking the journalists.”

Khanna said he was keeping this commitment when he yanked his endorsement of Platner on Monday. “I’ve been very clear that sexual assault or violence against women is a red line,” he posted on X. “These allegations are very serious and credible. Graham Platner should drop out from the race. I am withdrawing my endorsement.”

But Khanna, who worked across the aisle with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to stop the Iran war and release the Epstein files, has been billed as a thoughtful progressive. This episode will raise questions about the Californian as a judge of character. 

Sanders was most assertive in defending Platner on the sexting scandal. 

“We got a housing crisis. People can’t afford healthcare; they can’t afford groceries; they can’t afford to fill up their gas tanks,” he told reporters on Capitol Hill. “And I think it’s important for us to focus on the issues facing working families a little bit more than Graham Platner’s marriage.”

“I wish their marriage the very best,” Sanders added. “But right now, I think we should be focusing on the crises facing the working class and electing people of the guts to stand up to the oligarchs who control our country.”

Sanders was slow to pull his support from Platner, though it may have been because he was lobbying his Maine protege in private. 

“I have spoken with Graham Platner about the best path forward for Maine,” Sanders wrote on X. “In light of these very serious allegations, I have recommended that he step aside.”

Ocasio-Cortez had come under fire for not endorsing challengers to incumbents in Democratic primaries (the way she won her own congressional seat in 2018). On Platner, at least, her more cautious approach was vindicated.

Sanders, 84, has acknowledged he is probably too old to run for the Democratic presidential nomination for a third time, though in some ways he has never been more influential within the party.

Khanna, 49, and Ocasio-Cortez, 36, are significantly younger and would not require asking voters to elect the third consecutive octogenarian president after never electing one before.

TROY JACKSON FILES EXPLORATORY BID TO REPLACE GRAHAM PLATNER

Most Democrats will move on from the Platner controversy by 2028, which is a lifetime away in the modern news cycle.

But there isn’t enough room for three candidates in the socialist lane of the 2028 Democratic race, and this could be one of the factors that winnows that segment of the presidential field.