BANGOR, Maine \u2014 Former state Senate President Troy Jackson officially became Democrats\u2019 Senate nominee in Maine, starting a 101-day sprint to Election Day in a nationally watched, must-win race for his party.<\/p>\n
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Hundreds of Democrats gathered in Bangor on Saturday morning for a state convention to pick their Senate nominee after the primary winner, Graham Platner, ended his campaign earlier this month after a sexual assault allegation, which he denied.<\/p>\n
Jackson, a veteran legislator, was expected to win the nod after delegate candidates supporting him dominated at county meetings <\/a>last weekend and all of his major opponents dropped out.<\/p>\n And Democrats are eager to move on to the general election. <\/p>\n \u201cI officially call this convention to order \u2014 with a sigh of relief,\u201d Maine Democratic Party Chair Charlie Dingman told the Democrats packed into a ballroom. Dingman announced later Saturday morning that Jackson had captured all but five of the 571 ballots cast at the convention, prompting roars from the crowd and chants of, \u201cTroy! Troy! Troy!\u201d <\/p>\n The rapid series of events has shaken the Maine contest, where longtime Sen. Susan Collins, the only Republican representing a state President Donald Trump lost in 2024, is seeking a sixth term. Democrats are looking to net four seats and take control of the Senate this fall, and Maine represents one of their best opportunities to notch a win, at least on paper. If Democrats do not defeat Collins, they\u2019ll have to pick up another seat in a state Trump carried by double digits.<\/p>\n Jackson previewed his case against the senator at Saturday\u2019s convention.<\/p>\n \u201cFor nearly 30 years, Collins has told Maine that she is concerned,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cShe was concerned while she rubber-stamped Trump\u2019s Medicaid cuts and gutted our health care. She\u2019s concerned when she cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy. Concerned when she confirmed justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, and really tragically. She was concerned when she gave ICE billions to terrorize our neighbors and murder people in the streets with no accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut concern does not lower the costs of groceries or gas. Concern does not keep our monitoring wards of rural hospitals like down in Lincoln County open. Concern does not restore all the rights that she\u2019s taken away,\u201d Jackson continued. <\/p>\n \u201cMaine does not need another six years of concern.\u201d he added. \u201cWe need someone with courage. We need a fighter, and we need a senator who remembers exactly who sent them to Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked to respond to similar attacks from Jackson at rallies last weekend, the Collins campaign compared the new Democratic nominee to Platner.<\/p>\n \u201cTroy Jackson is showing us the low-energy version of the Graham Platner campaign,\u201d Collins spokeswoman Blake Kernen told NBC News. \u201cHe lies about the facts and makes empty promises without plans. That is why he came in third in the Democratic primary for governor a month ago.\u201d<\/p>\n As his focus turns to Collins, Jackson must confront several daunting tasks, and with no time to spare.<\/p>\n He has to not only build a statewide campaign. He has to raise millions of dollars to compete on the airwaves.<\/p>\n Most of all, he has to convince huge numbers of Mainers who have repeatedly backed Collins for decades that it\u2019s time for her to go.<\/p>\n Jackson\u2019s path to victory<\/p>\n Many Democrats backed Jackson\u2019s bid because they saw him as the candidate with the best chance of defeating Collins in November.<\/p>\n Supporters of Jackson, a former logger and longtime legislator from Allagash, a tiny town at the northern tip of the state, believe he will have unique appeal to working-class voters and cut into Collins\u2019 margins in rural Maine. It\u2019s the first time Collins, from Aroostook County, will be facing an opponent who also hails from the same sprawling area.<\/p>\n \u201cThe working class has been left behind and forgotten about,\u201d said Shelly Mountain, a former Aroostook County Democratic Committee chairwoman and a pro-Jackson delegate at the convention.<\/p>\n \u201cHe is definitely working class and always \u2014 has always,\u201d she emphasized again, \u201cbeen a champion for the working class.\u201d<\/p>\n A Democratic strategist with experience in Maine races, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the race and Jackson\u2019s potential challenges, noted that a Democratic statewide win against Collins involves narrowing a likely loss in the rural 2nd Congressional District to high single digits.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing from Aroostook County and having shown a pretty significant overperformance in his state Senate races, [Jackson] is well-suited to do that,\u201d the strategist said, later adding: \u201cOf course, Sen. Collins is not a pushover. She\u2019s done very well over the state but also particularly the 2nd District.\u201d<\/p>\n Other Democrats noted that Jackson mainly has to run up the score in traditionally Democratic strongholds of Portland and other cities.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a path without expanding the map,\u201d said David Farmer, a Maine Democratic strategist. He noted that Collins\u2019 2020 opponent, former state House Speaker Sara Gideon, underperformed the Democratic presidential ticket in Portland and other blue areas, due in part to a third-party candidate.<\/p>\n Farmer was optimistic that this year, Democrats would stay united.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reactions to Trump, to the ICE killing in Biddeford<\/a>, to high prices, to the war [with Iran] \u2014 that solidifies Democrats so they\u2019re less likely to drift than in 2020,\u201d Farmer said.<\/p>\n But the Democratic strategist noted that when Jackson ran in the party\u2019s primary for governor earlier this year, he struggled in more affluent parts of the state where Collins has performed well, even as they have shifted away from the GOP in the Trump era.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019ll need to do better in the greater Portland suburbs,\u201d the strategist said.<\/p>\n The 2020 election provides some clues about Jackson\u2019s challenges ahead. That year, Collins won re-election nearly 9 points<\/a> even as Joe Biden carried the state by the same margin.<\/p>\n Exit polls show that Collins overperformed with independents, moderates and women. Independents who voted for Biden by 24 points also voted for Collins by 3 points. Self-identified moderates swung 24 points for Biden, but they voted for Collins by 7 points.<\/p>\n Women, who have long been key to Collins\u2019 victories<\/a>, broke for Biden by 23 points, but they voted for Collins by 3 points. Collins overperformed among women who didn\u2019t go to college and limited the margin of defeat among white women with college degrees, one of Democrats\u2019 strongest constituencies.<\/p>\n More challenges ahead<\/p>\n Jackson\u2019s most immediate challenge is fundraising. His campaign announced Wednesday that it had raised over $600,000 in roughly 72 hours, surpassing $1 million since launching his Senate run on July 8. Collins\u2019 campaign had $11 million to spend as of June 30, and Republican groups are gearing up to spend millions more.<\/p>\n Jackson is likely to get outside help, too, as Democratic groups that had abandoned Platner amid his scandals re-engage in the race.<\/p>\n Ahead of the convention, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, signaled that Jackson could expect full support from the deep-pocketed party apparatus once he clinched the nomination.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re excited for Maine,\u201d Gillibrand said, adding that after state Democrats \u201cfinish their primary,\u201d the DSCC will \u201csupport whoever wins.\u201d<\/p>\n Republicans, meanwhile, are gearing up to unload attacks on Jackson<\/a>, particularly over his long tenure in the state Legislature and his ties to Platner.<\/p>\n Senate Leadership Fund, a GOP super PAC, is launching a new six-figure ad <\/a>campaign aimed at Jackson, starting with a digital ad launching on Saturday. The group has plans to spend more than $42 million on the race. <\/p>\n The ad highlights recent headlines on Jackson\u2019s temper and heated confrontations<\/a> with legislative colleagues, with a narrator saying, \u201cA volatile personality, anger issues with women, verbal abuse. It\u2019s not Graham Platner, it\u2019s Troy Jackson. Jackson has a history of conflicts with women, bullying, even intimidation.\u201d <\/p>\n But Jackson\u2019s supporters were not concerned about those attacks. <\/p>\n \u201cIf I had been going through the same bulls–t argument about stripping people\u2019s coverage for their medications, I\u2019d be throwing f—ing water bottles too,\u201d said McGinley Jones, a 56-year-old small business owner and convention delegate Washington County, referring to an episode where Jackson reportedly threw a water bottle during a meeting on prescription drug legislation.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m all for him getting passionate,\u201d said Jim Gerritsen, an organic farmer representing Aroostook County at the convention, who has worked with Jackson on some pieces of legislation. \u201cI\u2019m all for him getting strong to fight for us because we know for sure that Susan Collins has never lifted a finger in her life to fight for the working class.\u201d<\/p>\n Jackson and Platner were close allies and campaigned together, although Jackson quickly called on Platner to step aside following the sexual assault allegation.<\/p>\n Lance Dutson, a GOP strategist in Maine who worked on Collins\u2019 past campaigns but is not involved in the race, suggested the contest resets without Platner, whose viral videos and impassioned critiques of the political and economic systems catapulted him to national fame.<\/p>\n With a \u201cgeneric Democrat\u201d as her opponent, Dutson predicted the contest would focus instead on their legislative records.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are going to be able to put his record up against Collins\u2019 record. And there\u2019s really no comparison between the two,\u201d Dutson said, noting that Collins can point to \u201cliterally billions and billions of dollars\u201d she has brought to Maine as a longtime member, and now chairwoman, of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee.<\/p>\n Collins herself has already started to try and define Jackson as out of step with Mainers.<\/p>\n She told NBC News<\/a> earlier this week that Jackson \u201cseems to be firmly aligned with the democratic socialists,\u201d and she recently told CNN<\/a> that Jackson is a \u201cBernie bro,\u201d referring to his support for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., during the 2016 presidential primary.<\/p>\n Sanders, who endorsed both Jackson and Platner in their primaries, stayed out of the brief race to pick a new Senate nominee. But he praised Jackson this week as someone who \u201cunderstands the problems of the working class in Maine and throughout this country.\u201d<\/p>\n Dutson, the GOP consultant, acknowledged that Jackson could have some appeal in rural parts of the state given his roots in northern Maine, but said his policies were still too far left.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re from Aroostook County, Maine, but you\u2019re standing onstage with Bernie Sanders, that\u2019s just a massive disconnect,\u201d Dutson said.<\/p>\n One reason Democrats are relieved is Jackson wins them back voters like Carol Eisenberg, a lawyer based in Maine, who supported Janet Mills in the primary and was leery of Platner after he won the nomination.<\/p>\n Jackson \u201chas my full support,\u201d she said. \u201cI would never cast a ballot for Susan Collins. I just wasn\u2019t sure if I would be able to cast one for Platner.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BANGOR, Maine \u2014 Former state Senate President Troy Jackson officially became Democrats\u2019 Senate nominee in Maine, starting a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-784023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784249966030_nc_wcsh_maine_dem_senate_debate_platner_260716_S3_1920x1080-nlcfbq.jpg\")
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