On Friday’s broadcast of PBS’s “Washington Week,” Puck Chief Washington Correspondent Leigh Ann Caldwell said that “a big reason why so many Democrats on the left were excusing” so many of Graham Platner’s problems is “because Platner was really their big hope of what the direction of the party could be.”

Caldwell said that while Platner’s polling support was falling before the newest accusations and his fundraising was falling, when it comes to “the so many Democrats who were excusing so many things of Graham Platner, there was this really — this internal battle that was happening with the — in the party that the progressive left, again, they were excusing all of this because this was part of their plan and so necessary for them to prove to the Democratic Party that they could win with their policies, with their people, with their priorities in a barely blue state to give them legitimacy, also heading into other Senate races and into 2028.”

She continued, “And so that’s a big reason why so many Democrats on the left were excusing this, because Platner was really their big hope of what the direction of the party could be.”

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