BANGOR, Maine >> Maine Democrats chose Troy Jackson, a progressive former state legislator, to replace Graham Platner as their Senate candidate at a convention today that followed weeks of internal turmoil in a key battleground state.
Jackson’s victory, a vote of 566-5, came on the first ballot of a pop-up state convention the Maine Democratic Party organized in the 17 days since Platner, who faced a rape accusation he denies, dropped out of the race.
The coronation of Jackson, who has spent a quarter-century in Maine state politics, completes a tumultuous process since Platner was forced from the race. He will face Sen. Susan Collins, a five-term Republican who has stymied generations of Maine Democrats.
“Today we turn the page,” Jackson told delegates in Bangor, Maine. “Today, we begin the work of defeating Susan Collins in November.”
Jackson, 58, carries much of the progressive politics that powered the movement that lifted Platner from political obscurity to the cusp of the Senate. A former logger who entered politics in the late 1990s organizing against Canadian workers crossing the border to work for lower wages than Americans, Jackson will now be up against Collins, a moderate Republican seeking a sixth term.
The race, seen as a central battleground in the fight for control of the Senate, will now feature two longtime politicians who grew up in the same county in northern Maine.
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In the days since he has become the presumptive Democratic nominee, Jackson has sought to tie Collins directly to President Donald Trump, who has lost the state in each of his three campaigns.
In his victory remarks today, Jackson said Collins “has served Donald Trump” and condemned her votes to confirm his Supreme Court appointees and to fund the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement.
Collins, who has long portrayed herself as a moderate above the fray of the mudslinging of politics elsewhere, and her Republican allies have in turn sought to disqualify Jackson on personal grounds.
She recently dismissed Jackson as a “Bernie Bro” while the Maine Republican Party compared Jackson to Platner. The Senate Leadership Fund, the main super political action committee for Senate Republicans, released a new advertisement attacking Jackson over reports he can be ill-tempered, saying he is “like Graham Platner, but worse.”
A former president of the state Senate, Jackson was one of a dozen Democrats who entered the abbreviated contest to replace Platner earlier this month. Like Jackson, many of them had waged losing campaigns for other offices earlier this year.
Following a condensed primary that included a single televised debate and a scramble to organize supporters, Jackson’s supporters won delegate elections in overwhelming margins at county party gatherings last weekend.
His main Democratic rivals subsequently dropped out, turning what could have been a messy convention into a clear victory for Jackson.
Maine Democrats are expected to formally submit his nomination to Shenna Bellows, Maine’s secretary of state, when her office opens Monday. Bellows was one of the Democrats who sought to replace Platner and ended her campaign following Jackson’s show of force at the county meetings.
A fixture of Maine politics for a quarter century who speaks in the Aroostook accent of his state’s north woods, Jackson, 58, will now be thrust to the center of a Senate race that for the last year has attracted national attention and tens of millions of dollars.
While he is well known in Augusta and in state politics, Jackson has little profile outside Maine or with national donors who fund the nation’s most competitive Senate races. He has not been viewed as a prolific fundraiser in state politics.
A progressive economic populist who has rallied against big corporations and champions a “Medicare for All” universal healthcare system, Jackson began his political career quite conservative on social issues. For years, he opposed abortion rights, voted against same-sex marriage and received high ratings from the National Rifle Association.
But Jackson adopted standard progressive positions as he rose in Maine politics. As the state Senate president, Jackson ushered through one of the nation’s most permissive abortion laws, allowing the procedure at any point in a woman’s pregnancy with a physician’s consent.
Some of Jackson’s colleagues from his time as the leader of the state Senate, which lasted from 2018 to 2024, recalled that at times he could be quick to anger.
Jackson’s left-leaning politics largely mirror those of Platner, who energized Maine Democrats though a series of town hall gatherings over the last year. The two campaigned together earlier this year as Jackson ran for governor, running on a similar progressive mantle built around ideas such as abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Platner, an oyster farmer who had never run for office before, faced a series of revelations about his past, including offensive online posts, a tattoo on his chest that resembled a Nazi symbol and allegations about his treatment of women.
Jackson is a veteran politician who has long been an adherent of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who leads an impassioned left-wing movement. Jackson worked for Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign and had the senator’s endorsement during his run for governor this year. In an interview Monday, Jackson said Sanders, who caucuses with the Democrats, would be his first choice to be the leader of Senate Democrats next year.
Jackson said in that interview that he would not support Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to remain in his post. Jackson also expressed reservations about receiving financial or other assistance from Schumer, whose allies oversee the super PAC devoted to electing Senate Democrats.
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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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