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Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who has left the door open to a 2028 presidential run, is facing new questions about his judgment after rescinding support for a second Democratic candidate accused of misconduct involving women.
Gallego rescinded his endorsement of Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner on Monday after a rape allegation surfaced. The move comes just months after Gallego pulled his support from Eric Swalwell’s disastrous California gubernatorial bid amid separate allegations of sexual assault and misconduct.
Both Platner and Swalwell have denied the allegations against them. In a social media post on X announcing he would be withdrawing his support for Platner, Gallego called the accusations against Platner “troubling and deeply serious.”
Meanwhile, Lyndsey Fifield, Platner’s former girlfriend who has publicly accused Platner of abusive behavior, called out Gallego after the Arizona senator withdrew his Platner endorsement Monday, suggesting Gallego had ample warning signs before finally abandoning the embattled Maine Democrat.
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“Mine weren’t sufficiently troubling or serious for you, right?” Fifield wondered in response to a social media post on X from Gallego, referring to the accounts of her relationship with Platner provided to The New York Times and published several weeks ago.
Fifield’s allegations were included in a June 4 New York Times report examining Platner’s past relationships in which she alleged that he repeatedly grabbed her hard enough to leave marks, pulled her from a cab by the wrist and, in one incident, twisted her arm behind her back and held her in a room while they were dating several years ago. Fifield told the Times Platner never hit or punched her but said the alleged incidents left her shaken and afraid. Platner denied being violent and called the allegations false.
Still, Platner drew support from influential Democratic figures before and after the Times report. “Pod Save America” co-host Jon Lovett acknowledged after the June 4 story that the Times had reported allegations that Platner was “intimidating and even physically aggressive with past romantic partners” but argued Democrats had to weigh whether they preferred “a Democratic majority with Graham Platner in the Senate” or a Republican majority with incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
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Fellow co-host Jon Favreau had previously praised Platner as Democrats’ “best and only chance” to beat Collins and as a “good, decent man who’s struggled and grown and is always trying to do better.”
“Senator Gallego did the right thing and broke with those individuals when he learned they had betrayed values he proudly fights for,” a Gallego spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
But Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., said people like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., needed to apologize for backing Platner, telling Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that he “refused” early on to look past the claims.
“What he did is he effectively broke in her home – he went in her home without her consent, then he came upstairs and assaulted her. She also described that created a dangerous situation for a possible pregnancy because of those circumstances, what he’s done,” Fetterman said of the latest allegations.
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“He was already a dead man walking politically,” Fetterman continued. “Even those ‘Pod Save America’ people who pushed that dirtbag — and they dismissed those things in The New York Times article — maybe they ought to apologize to the women that clearly they didn’t believe or they dismissed.
“I know Democrats that have back-to-back endorsed and gone all in on Swalwell and were on the Platner train as well too. So, maybe stop getting in bed with absolute dirtbags, someone like Platner.”
A Fox News Digital review of public endorsement announcements and press reports found Gallego was the only sitting member of Congress clearly identified as having endorsed both Swalwell and Platner. Separate state and local affiliates within the SEIU and AFL-CIO labor union networks were involved in each race, but they were not the same endorsing entities.
“The allegations against Platner are awful but are also unsurprising to anyone who actually read the NYT catch-and-kill story. The victim strongly implied the allegations there,” former chief counsel to Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, Mike Fragoso, said this week after the latest round of allegations against Platner.
The latest allegation came from Jenny Racicot, a Maine Democrat who said she dated Platner on and off from 2019 to 2021 and had previously spoken to the Times for its June story. Racicot alleged in a Monday Politico report that Platner entered her home uninvited in late 2021 after she told him not to come over, was intoxicated, ignored her repeated objections and forced her to have sex.
Politico reported that it reviewed text messages and emails with Racicot’s therapist and spoke with people she said she confided in after the alleged assault. Platner has once again denied the allegation as false.
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Gallego joined several other prominent Democrats after the Politico report in rescinding support for Platner or calling on him to exit the race, while Democratic operatives face a tight window under Maine election law to replace him if he withdraws.
“Gallego’s judgment is troubling,” Republican Arizona state Sen. Warren Peterson said. “Another Gallego endorsement going down in flames.”
“There is a bizarre pattern of Gallego, who claimed complete ignorance of his friend Eric Swalwell’s alleged abusive treatment of women and is now doing the same with Graham Platner,” said Jonathan Turley, a Fox News Media contributor and George Washington University law professor.
“For Schumer’s PAC, Senatorial, Gallego, the Pod Bros, et al. the only real difference now is polling,” Fragoso said of the changing sentiment toward Platner.
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Meanwhile, conservative commentator Ryan Girdusky took aim at Gallego’s personal history, writing on X, “Ruben Gallego is dropping Graham Platner like he’s a pregnant wife.”
The jab comes as Gallego has also faced separate scrutiny in reference to his 2016 divorce from wife Kate Gallego, who was pregnant at the time.
Unsealed divorce records reportedly showed that Gallego filed for divorce on Dec. 15, 2016, and that his own motion to seal the case noted Kate Gallego had “not yet been served” but was “likely to give birth any day.”
In addition to scrutiny over his divorce, Gallego has faced complaints over his campaign spending on family travel, childcare and other personal expenses. A week ago, Politico reported that Gallego used campaign money on family trips to Miami, Saint Barthélemy, Disneyland, Disney World and Chicago. He also used funds to attend the 2023 Super Bowl in Arizona, but the senator insisted that the tickets were a legitimate campaign fundraising expense.
Fox News Digital’s Peter D’Abrosca and Katelyn Caralle contributed to this report.
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