Troy Jackson won the Democratic nomination for Maine’s U.S. Senate seat on Saturday, capping nearly three weeks of political drama following the collapse of Graham Platner’s populist campaign.
Hundreds of Democratic delegates from across Maine chose Jackson — a logger and former Maine Senate president — to take on Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins this fall in a pivotal race that both parties regard as key to control of the Senate. Jackson faced only one opponent, Saundra Pelletier, during Saturday’s nominating convention in Bangor because all of his better-known rivals withdrew after his supporters dominated last weekend’s delegate-selection process.
Jackson received 566 votes versus five votes for Pelletier, a biopharmaceutical executive running for public office for the first time.
“Are you ready to defeat Susan Collins?” Jackson said prior to the vote, prompting a roar of approval from the nearly 600 delegates. “Well then let’s unite this party, let’s build the largest working-class movement Maine has ever seen and let’s win this thing.”
Collins is widely viewed as especially vulnerable this year as the only Republican senator up for reelection in a state won by Democrat Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election. Polls suggest that President Donald Trump and his policies are unpopular with the independents who make up a third of Maine’s electorate and who have often been key to Collins’ longevity in Congress.
But Collins has used her position as chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee to bring hundreds of millions of dollars back to Maine. The Collins campaign has portrayed her as a steady leader and moderate dealmaker in bitterly divided DC.
Her campaign and its Republican allies immediately sought to cast Jackson as a “socialist” or a “far-left” candidate chosen by Democratic insiders.
“Troy Jackson will attempt to sell Mainers a multi-trillion-dollar bill of goods based on rhetoric that will make everything sound free, but in reality would be paid for by middle- and lower-income workers,” Shawn Roderick, spokesman for the Collins campaign, said in a statement. “Our campaign will continue to run on Senator Collins’ bipartisan record of delivering results for Maine and America, which will stand in stark contrast to Troy’s low-energy campaign and his partisan record of driving up costs, hurting our schools, and making life less affordable for families across the state.”
From logger to Senate contender
It was aremarkable turn of events for Jackson, a blue-collar progressive who says just one month ago he was fishing the remote waters near his hometown in Allagash after finishing third in the Democratic primary for governor.
Then Platner withdrew from the Senate race after an ex-romantic partner leveled allegations of rape against him in a story published by POLITICO. Platner denied the allegations. But Jackson, who had campaigned with Platner several times, successfully positioned himself as the best person to continue pushing the issues that had drawn so many frustrated Democrats and independents to the former nominee’s campaign.
Jackson pledged to work toward universal health care, to defend workers’ rights and reproductive rights, and to stand up to the Trump administration and to what he says is a “billionaire class” that is getting wealthier and wealthier on the backs of lower- and middle-class Americans.
“We will welcome Democrats, independents and Republicans who believe that working people, working people, finally deserve a fair deal,” Jackson said in his post-nomination speech. “Even when we don’t agree on every issue because this movement is not from the left, it is not from the right. It’s from the bottom, and we are rising.”
A fifth-generation logger, Jackson represented far northern Maine for 20 years in the Maine House and Senate, winning term after term as a Democrat even as the region turned increasingly Republican. He served as Senate president for six of those years.
Jackson got his start in politics after helping to lead a blockade of logging road border crossings in 1998 to protest landowners’ hiring lower-paid Canadian loggers to work in the Maine woods. He has been heavily involved with Maine’s labor unions — and that support appeared to have been critical in his ability to organize supporters to run for delegates and then vote in last week’s process.
Democrats’ three-week sprint
Maine Democratic Party leaders had less than three weeks under state law to select a new nominee after Platner withdrew. Facing intense pressureto respect the massive grassroots support behind Platner, party leaders settled on county-by-county, caucus-style meetings to elect delegates to the nominating convention held on Saturday.
There were 12 declared candidates headed into last weekend’s delegate-selection process. Three of those candidates — Jackson, Nirav Shah and Shenna Bellows — ran in last month’s gubernatorial primary, as did former 2nd Congressional District candidate Jordan Wood.
But as the first county results began coming in, it quickly became clear that nearly all of the delegate spots were being filled by Jackson supporters. Jackson was able to tap into his strong support among union members as well as Platner’s massive volunteer network to turn out large numbers across the state.
By the end of the the second day of voting, all of Jackson’s top rivals had withdrawn from the race, clearing the path for Jackson’s official nomination six days later.
The sole remaining challenger by Saturday was Pelletier who, like Jackson and Collins, grew up in Aroostook County before attending Husson College and building a successful career. She now serves as CEO of Evofem Biosciences, a biopharmaceutical company that produces prescription drugs related to female reproductive health.
During her speech to delegates before Saturday’s vote, Pelletier said she has “spent my career shaming the powerful” and pledged to be calm, measured leader “with the heart, the head and the backbone to know how to negotiate.” She also cast herself as the best person to win the moderates and independents needed to defeat Collins.
“[Collins] is going to try to run the same campaign that she has always run,” Pelletier said. “We have a chance to stop her. Today is an opportunity for you to select a candidate that can beat Susan Collins. It is time that we have a Democrat in that seat.”
The response from the delegates was polite and respectful. But it paled in comparison to the reception and standing ovations that Jackson received during the two times he addressed the crowd on Saturday, sometimes fighting back his emotions as he recalled his upbringing in a logging family and years spent working in the woods.
But Jackson also seemed to acknowledge the deep divisions — even fissures — within the Democratic Party that were arguably best represented by Platner’s meteoric rise to political fame. Platner received the largest number of primary votes in a Senate race in Maine history and drove Gov. Janet Mills — the candidate supported by national Democratic leaders — out of the race as he pledged to stand up to the political establishment.
“I’ve always known this,¹ that your trust has to be earned, and and so I want you to hear this directly from me: there is a place in this campaign for all of you,” Jackson said. “There is work for you in this movement, and I will spend every day now through November earning that trust, because today we turn the page. Today this becomes a general election campaign.”
Late entrance into high-stakes race
Jackson now faces the daunting task of quickly ramping up a campaign against Collins, a 30-year Senate veteran who has handily defeated every opponent in her four previous re-election campaigns. He also enters that campaign at a financial and organizational disadvantage with only 3 1/2 months left before Election Day. Republicans have already spent tens of millions of dollars to support Collins or to attack any potential challenger.
The political ad-tracking firm AdImpact has estimated that nearly $500 millionwill be spent on elections in Maine this year, with the Senate race consuming about $400 million of that figure. Much of that will be spent by the national parties and their deep-pocketed allies running PACs, super PACs and interest groups.
The Collins campaign, meanwhile, reported this week that it had raised $5.7 million during the last quarter and was sitting on $11 million in cash on hand.
“Troy Jackson is a Platner apologist, a radical Bernie Bro, and a walking red flag displaying all the warning signs of the early days of the Platner campaign,” Kristen Cianci, spokesperson for the Republican National Committee. “Senator Susan Collins is a proven leader with unimpeachable character who will continue to deliver for Mainers when they re-elect her this November.”
But Jackson reported raising more than $1 million during the first several weeks of his campaign and is expected to inherit a hefty sum raised by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — the campaign arm of the Senate Democratic caucus — for the eventual nominee.
“Troy Jackson is a fifth-generation logger with a demonstrated ability to win,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and DSCC chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said in a joint statement. “A champion of affordable health care and working people, Jackson has harnessed the grassroots energy in Maine and is well-positioned to defeat Susan Collins, who is more vulnerable than she has ever been.”
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