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Notes -
Regardless of how true the accusations are, they were tanking his chances in the election by a significant margin and that's assuming that there isn't even more stuff that's going to come out that he is aware of and now realizes will happen. The Dem's chances of winning have skyrocketed back up both right after the accusation where it was assumed he would drop out, and now again after he's officially done it. Politics has deteriorated significantly in the past decade, but there's still some standards left thankfully and a significant chunk of voters don't want to turn out for that. They're willing to tolerate one or two mishaps if there's plausible deniability, especially stuff they might have made themselves (as I covered here, most people obviously would not have recognized the tattoo so they're more forgiving of it) but sexual assault allegations isn't one of them. Most of the voters aren't imagining themselves accidently raping someone as a youthful mistake.
If Platner has any concerns about his idealogical goals, dropping out and trying to push for a replacement that he agrees with on a lot of topics might be the best way for him to achieve them. And it seems he understands this, given that he was making deals on selecting his replacement.
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