Graham Plattner accuses media of trying to ‘tear apart’ his marriage over explicit text row: ‘Amy and I had a very…’

Senate hopeful Graham Plattner The Wall Street Journal reports that Maine’s governor has broken his silence after his wife, Amy Gertner, previously claimed that her husband exchanged sexually explicit text messages with other women during their marriage. Plant, an oyster farmer and former U.S. Marine, became Maine’s presumptive Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate after his primary rival, Janet Mills, suspended her campaign last month.

Plattner refuted the accusations in an interview with NewsCenter Maine on Sunday, June 1, accompanied by his wife after a campaign stop in Portland.

“It’s not surprising to me that the mainstream media is just spreading gossip instead of trying to talk about what’s really important in this game, which is the physical reality that Meiners is dealing with,” Plattner said.

Learn more | Who is Graham Plattner’s wife? 5 things you need to know about Amy Gertner’s explicit text messages

“Amy and I had a very loving, very happy marriage. They were very keen to try and break it up,” he added, before talking about hospital closures, low teacher and nurse pay and the fact that Mainers’ wages aren’t as high as they used to be.

“But, of course, the powers that be don’t want us to talk about this, so they just make small talk,” Plattner concluded.

When asked directly whether the allegation was inaccurate, Plattner said: “The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times ran these stories without any evidence other than gossip from former staffers. I’m sorry, and this is clearly journalistic malfeasance.”

“We talked about what we had gone through in Amy and I’s marriage over the years. We talked about it because that was our marriage and we discussed it with the campaign,” he insisted.

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Plattner’s team began conducting opposition research on him to unveil new information during his Senate bid after launching his campaign last August ahead of a Labor Day rally with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. At the time, Gertner and Genevieve McDonald, the campaign’s political director at the time, revealed she discovered sexually explicit messages he sent to other women on his phone in the spring of 2025. The two subsequently began marriage counseling, and campaign aides considered the information a private matter.

Shortly after the report broke, Gertner said publicly that she had “revealed deeply personal details about my marriage to someone I considered a friend” and was “deeply hurt by her betrayal and invasion of our privacy.” “I know who Graham is. I know the man I married and the husband he was to me on the best and worst days of my life. That has not changed and will not change,” she added.