BANGOR, Maine — Former state Senate President Troy Jackson is on the cusp of becoming Democrats’ Senate nominee in Maine, starting a 101-day sprint to Election Day in a nationally watched, must-win race for his party.
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Hundreds of Democrats are gathering 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.
Jackson is facing pharmaceutical executive Saundra Pelletier in his bid for the nomination at the convention. But Jackson, a veteran legislator, is expected to win the nod after delegate candidates supporting him dominated at county meetings last weekend and all of his major opponents dropped out.
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’ll have to pick up another seat in a state Trump carried by double digits.
Jackson previewed his case against the senator at rallies last weekend.
“In nearly 30 years, Susan Collins has told Mainers that she is concerned. She’s told us that she is troubled,” Jackson told his supporters at a Sanford rally, prompting one of his backers to remark, “She should be now.”
“Too often she’s stood with Donald Trump and the corporations that already have too much power,” Jackson later added, saying the senator voted for “tax giveaways to billionaires and corporations” and supported the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who then voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that had guaranteed a federal right to abortion.
“She stood by while the administration attacks federal workers, unions, immigrants, healthcare and the basic rights of Maine people,” Jackson said. “Maine does not need another six years of concern. We need courage. We need a fighter, and we need someone who remembers exactly who sent them to Washington.”
Asked to respond to Jackson’s attacks, the Collins campaign compared him to Platner.
“Troy Jackson is showing us the low-energy version of the Graham Platner campaign,” Collins spokeswoman Blake Kernen told NBC News. “He 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.”
As his focus turns to Collins, Jackson must confront several daunting tasks, and with no time to spare.
He has to not only build a statewide campaign. He has to raise millions of dollars to compete on the airwaves.
Most of all, he has to convince huge numbers of Mainers who have repeatedly backed Collins for decades that it’s time for her to go.
Jackson’s path to victory
Many Democrats backed Jackson’s bid because they saw him as the candidate with the best chance of defeating Collins in November.
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’ margins in rural Maine. It’s the first time Collins, from Aroostook County, will be facing an opponent who also hails from the same sprawling area.
“The working class has been left behind and forgotten about,” said Shelly Mountain, a former Aroostook County Democratic Committee chairwoman and a pro-Jackson delegate at the convention.
“He is definitely working class and always — has always,” she emphasized again, “been a champion for the working class.”
A Democratic strategist with experience in Maine races, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the race and Jackson’s 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.
“Being from Aroostook County and having shown a pretty significant overperformance in his state Senate races, [Jackson] is well-suited to do that,” the strategist said, later adding: “Of course, Sen. Collins is not a pushover. She’s done very well over the state but also particularly the 2nd District.”
Other Democrats noted that Jackson mainly has to run up the score in traditionally Democratic strongholds of Portland and other cities.
“There’s a path without expanding the map,” said David Farmer, a Maine Democratic strategist. He noted that Collins’ 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.
Farmer was optimistic that this year, Democrats would stay united.
“The reactions to Trump, to the ICE killing in Biddeford, to high prices, to the war [with Iran] — that solidifies Democrats so they’re less likely to drift than in 2020,” Farmer said.
But the Democratic strategist noted that when Jackson ran in the party’s 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.
“He’ll need to do better in the greater Portland suburbs,” the strategist said.
The 2020 election provides some clues about Jackson’s challenges ahead. That year, Collins won re-election nearly 9 points even as Joe Biden carried the state by the same margin.
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.
Women, who have long been key to Collins’ victories, broke for Biden by 23 points, but they voted for Collins by 3 points. Collins overperformed among women who didn’t go to college and limited the margin of defeat among white women with college degrees, one of Democrats’ strongest constituencies.
More challenges ahead
Jackson’s 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’ campaign had $11 million to spend as of June 30, and Republican groups are gearing up to spend millions more.
Jackson is likely to get outside help, too, as Democratic groups that had abandoned Platner amid his scandals re-engage in the race.
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.
“We’re excited for Maine,” Gillibrand said, adding that after state Democrats “finish their primary,” the DSCC will “support whoever wins.”
Republicans, meanwhile, are gearing up to unload attacks on Jackson, particularly over his long tenure in the state Legislature and his ties to Platner.
Jackson and Platner were close allies and campaigned together, although Jackson quickly called on Platner to step aside following the sexual assault allegation.
Lance Dutson, a GOP strategist in Maine who worked on Collins’ 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.
With a “generic Democrat” as her opponent, Dutson predicted the contest would focus instead on their legislative records.
“People are going to be able to put his record up against Collins’ record. And there’s really no comparison between the two,” Dutson said, noting that Collins can point to “literally billions and billions of dollars” she has brought to Maine as a longtime member, and now chairwoman, of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee.
Collins herself has already started to try and define Jackson as out of step with Mainers.
She told NBC News earlier this week that Jackson “seems to be firmly aligned with the democratic socialists,” and she recently told CNN that Jackson is a “Bernie bro,” referring to his support for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., during the 2016 presidential primary.
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 “understands the problems of the working class in Maine and throughout this country.”
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.
“If you’re from Aroostook County, Maine, but you’re standing onstage with Bernie Sanders, that’s just a massive disconnect,” Dutson said.
Jackson has also drawn some headlines for his temper and heated confrontations with legislative colleagues. But his supporters aren’t worried that those episodes will hamper Jackson as he takes on Collins.
“I’m all for him getting passionate,” said Jim Gerritsen, an organic farmer representing Aroostook County at the convention, who has worked with Jackson on some pieces of legislation. “I’m 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.”
“And, finally, we have a candidate here who is going to the mat for us,” Gerritsen said. “And that’s why we support him.”
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.
Jackson “has my full support,” she said. “I would never cast a ballot for Susan Collins. I just wasn’t sure if I would be able to cast one for Platner.”
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