00:00Even if Plattner does drop out and a new, less controversial candidate takes his place,
00:04has the damage already been done for the Democrats? Will this scandal follow them
00:09around the country and crash that blue wave many had predicted for the midterms?
00:14The Post's political reporter, Ryan King, has been digging into that.
00:17It's certainly a significant blow to the Democrats' brand heading into the midterm
00:22elections. I mean, part of their sell to voters is that Democrats have been a bit more moral than
00:30Republicans have been under Trump. And now they have to defend the fact that many of them,
00:36particularly in leadership and some of the most prominent members of the Democratic Party,
00:42had stood by Graham Plattner when a series of scandals broke against him. There were a lot
00:48of warning signs about this, and many of them stood by him nonetheless. And now that the rape
00:56allegations came out, they have started to distance themselves. And I think most of the
01:02impact from this will be in Maine, where Democrats are trying to get him to drop out of the race
01:12before the July 13th deadline. That would enable them to easily replace him with another nominee.
01:22And they think that that will help boost their chances of winning in November. But whoever gets
01:29the nomination on the Democrat side in Maine will likely have this stain on their candidacy. And then,
01:36of course, Republicans are going to take this and knock Democrats with this all throughout the coming
01:44weeks and see, you know, how that resonates with voters. But I think it certainly does damage the
01:52Democrats' brand. I'm not so sure that it will prevent the, that it'll move the needle too much in terms
02:00of
02:00where things stand with control of Congress, particularly when it comes to House races. On the Senate side,
02:07Maine was always a bit of a tough race for both Republicans and Democrats. It was always a race that
02:13could go
02:13either way. And I think most of the fallout on the Senate side of things will be largely contained to
02:22Maine. So I think,
02:24they got a lot of branding damage, but it's not necessarily going to
02:30significantly damage their chances of having a successful midterm election.
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