Eric Swalwell. Tony Gonzales. Now, Graham Platner. The battlefield that is this midterm election season is riddled with the campaigns of men felled by their pasts and by inescapable allegations of abuse of power and sexual violence.
Even the legacy of an icon, Cesar Chavez, was shattered in a matter of days.
Nearly a decade after the #MeToo movement, American politics appear to be in a new reckoning over sexual violence, and how best to respond when prominent or powerful figures stand accused.
It is a question on which the left and right have largely diverged: In recent months, Democrats have sought to expel problematic men swiftly, while Republicans in the era of Trump have often batted back accusations and stood by their men. There are notable exceptions in both directions, but the different approaches have cost Democrats talent and energy, and allowed some of the nation’s most powerful conservative figures to flourish.
Donald J. Trump won the presidency in 2016 even after the accusations of at least a half-dozen women who said he had groped or forcibly kissed them. He denied every one of them, but he would later be found liable by a jury for sexually abusing the writer E. Jean Carroll, yielding a $5 million civil judgment that a federal judge on Wednesday ordered him to pay.
The president went on to stand steadfastly by his nominees for various offices when they faced allegations of sexual improprieties, including Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — and so did a vast majority of his party. Each man denied the accusations.
Jackie Speier, a former Democratic congresswoman who helped pass a slew of laws during the #MeToo era that made it easier to punish sexual misconduct in Capitol Hill offices, said Republican leaders were more “timid” on the issue.
“Well,” she said, “look who’s in the presidency.”
Republican women disagreed.
“Both parties have done a piss-poor job,” said Representative Kat Cammack, Republican of Florida, who is helping lead a bipartisan effort to deal anew with sexual misconduct on Capitol Hill. “I reject the notion that one party is covering up more than the other. It’s a bipartisan problem.”
When asked about Mr. Trump, she brought up accusations of assault leveled against Joseph R. Biden Jr. by Tara Reade. Mr. Biden denied the allegations, and Ms. Reade, a former Senate aide, later defected to Russia.
Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina, one of a few Republican lawmakers who clashed with the president over the Jeffrey Epstein files, added, “Until the stakes are high, until they might lose an election, only then do you see movement” from either party. Ms. Mace said she did not believe Ms. Carroll’s allegations against Mr. Trump.
Both parties’ approaches date back to the 1990s. For Democrats, it was Bill Clinton. Party leaders overlooked accusations from multiple women of assault and exploitation, and stood by Mr. Clinton as he denied sexual relations with a former intern, Monica Lewinsky.
For Republicans, it was Justice Clarence Thomas, who was accused by Anita Hill of flagrant sexual harassment.
After the Clinton experience, Democrats seemed to handle cases more swiftly, but from a political perspective, arguably not more effectively. Al Franken, then a senator from Minnesota and a Democratic rising star, resigned from the Senate under pressure in 2017 after he was accused of groping women on photo lines and forcibly kissing a radio news anchor on a U.S.O. tour. Though Mr. Franken apologized, saying he had “crossed a line for some women,” he later said he had not done all that he was accused of and regretted resigning.
In contrast, Justice Thomas remains on the Supreme Court, as does Justice Kavanaugh. In both cases, party leaders and supporters attacked the nominees’ accusers and stood doggedly by the accused.
Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Hegseth are still wielding power while Mr. Trump controls his party, not so much because Republicans destroyed their accusers but because they saw little need to respond.
All of the accused men have denied the allegations. None were charged with a crime, though Mr. Trump was found liable in Ms. Carroll’s civil suit.
The different approaches might stem from their voters and a stark partisan divide when it comes to allegations of sexual violence against members of their own party. Three in five Republican respondents to a 2018 NPR/Ipsos poll said they would consider voting for a candidate who was accused of sexual assault. A majority of Democrats in that same poll said the exact opposite; 64 percent would not vote for such a candidate.
Belief among Republicans in giving victims “the benefit of the doubt” declined from 78 percent to 67 percent between December 2017 and October 2018, according to the poll.
To be sure, in 2026, there have been arguably more high-profile allegations of Democratic men committing sexual abuse or violence. Mr. Swalwell dropped out of the California governor’s race within days of being accused of sex abuse. While Mr. Platner weathered questions about a Nazi-affiliated tattoo and toxic behavior in his past relationships, he was then accused of rape.
Even with Mr. Chavez, a labor movement hero, liberals responded quickly. After The New York Times revealed allegations of rape and sexual coercion over decades, parades and monuments bearing his name and likeness were altered.
“Democrats are in a moment of reflection,” said Emma Davidson Tribbs, founding director of the National Women’s Defense League. “Their response in the last few months has been markedly different than we’ve seen in years past. How far they’re willing to take it, we’ll see.”
In some high-profile cases, Republicans remain slower to act. After a police investigation into assault and a protective order granted to a former girlfriend, Representative Cory Mills of Florida has not budged, despite repeated calls from Republican women for his expulsion.
Mr. Gonzales, a Republican congressman from Texas, remained in office for months after allegations surfaced of a coercive relationship with an aide who later killed herself. He left Congress only after Mr. Swalwell’s resignation from the House ensured Republicans would retain their lead in Congress.
Of Mr. Trump’s second-term nominees accused of sexual impropriety, only Matt Gaetz failed to be confirmed. Accusations that Mr. Gaetz had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him first surfaced in 2021. He denied them and easily won re-election twice in his heavily Republican district before his nomination to be attorney general.
Ms. Davidson Tribbs, with the National Women’s Defense League, is not letting Democrats off the hook. After tracking more than 400 accusations of sexual violence against state and federal elected officials, her organization concluded that comeuppance for an accused politician depends less on party affiliation than on whether his party is in power. Majority politicians, she said, have more to lose and are therefore less likely to call out a colleague.
Representative Teresa Leger Fernández, a New Mexico Democrat leading the bipartisan task force on sexual misconduct with Ms. Cammack, said the current reckoning was underscored by the continued outrage over the Epstein files.
“It’s both Democrats and MAGA and Republicans and independents who are outraged,” she said. “I do think we are in a very opportune time.”
