Jackson enters 100-day sprint with Collins as Maine Democrats hit reset
The Hill · C · trust 55/100
Comments: by Caroline Vakil - 07/26/26 6:00 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Caroline Vakil - 07/26/26 6:00 AM ET Comments: Link copied BANGOR – Democrats in Maine anointed progressive Troy Jackson as their pick to take on Sen. Susan Collins (R) with a tall order: Beat the five-term incumbent who has defied political gravity for three decades in 100 days.
Democrat Graham Platner’s exit from the marquee race earlier this month left the party scrambling to find a replacement to take on Collins in the battleground race. Jackson, a Republican-turned-Democrat who previously led the state Senate, coalesced support in the following weeks to officially clinch the nomination Saturday.
The party is now gearing up for a must-win race, and Democrats suggest they feel cautiously optimistic about their chances of ousting the formidable Maine Republican while acknowledging the tough climb they have ahead as they hit restart on the campaign.
“Look, this is going to be a very close race. Susan Collins has the advantage of incumbency and a vast amount of money,” said former Maine Democratic Party chair Tony Buxton. “Troy has the advantage of being on the right side of the issues and having a record of Susan Collins that has changed over time that I’m sure that he will point out.”
In a roughly two-week span, the compressed contest to replace Platner evolved from a frenzied start as members of the party expressed angst about finding a candidate to a near coronation as Jackson won over party members during county delegate nominating meetings last weekend.
Despite the lack of suspense heading into Saturday’s nominating convention, Maine Democrats were energized – and angry.
Signs of “No More Concerns,” “Retire Susan” and “Troy Jackson for Maine” fluttered throughout the crowd. Attendees excitedly rallied around Jackson’s calls to restore federal abortion access protections and calls for solidarity with the LGBTQ community, with signs at times blocking view of the candidate.
“Abolish ICE!” someone yelled from the crowd shortly after Maine Democratic Party chair Charles Dingman held a moment of silence for 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, who was killed during a recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)-involved shooting in Biddeford.
During his victory speech, Jackson argued that Collins turned her back on the state and showed more loyalty to corporations and the rich than the rest of the state. He also slammed her for confirming two of the Trump-nominated U.S. Supreme Court justices who would later issue the landmark ruling eliminating federal abortion protections.
“Susan Collins promised she would only serve two terms. She made that promise in the fall of 1996,” Jackson told the crowd. “And that same fall — that same fall — my father and I were watching work dry up in the logging industry. And by the next spring, we had to sell what we had to get out from under the debt.”
“Thirty years later, Susan Collins is still in Washington,” he said to audible boos. “So, I do have one question: Who has she served?”
Collins’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment from The Hill on Saturday.
While the party eyes a rare opportunity to flip the Pine Tree State’s Senate seat, some Democrats were frank in their assessment that Jackson is in for a tough slog ahead.
“She’s a tough incumbent to beat,” Maine state Sen. Craig Hickman (D), who’s served in top leadership positions in both chambers and whose time overlapped with Jackson’s. “And while she deserves some of the criticism that she gets, she’s also been very good for Maine.”
“It’s hard to start this late,” Buxton, the former state party chair, said. “But the polling shows that it’s a competitive race.”
Jackson also has several months to make up a huge fundraising deficit. Collins’s campaign ended the second quarter of this year with $11 million cash on hand while Jackson ended his gubernatorial campaign earlier this year with roughly $156,000, according to Maine campaign finance reporting.
The Washington Post reported earlier this week that Jackson was allegedly abrasive toward colleagues when he helmed the Maine Senate, including reportedly once throwing a water bottle during a meeting and had clashed with women legislative leaders.
The Jackson campaign told the Post that Jackson owned up to his heated moments and apologized when they occurred.
“Troy regrets the moments when disagreements became too heated,” Troy campaign adviser BJ McCollister told the newspaper, “but passion for the issues he advocates for should not be confused with physical intimidation or bullying.”
Senate Republicans launched one of their first salvos against the fifth-generation logger after he won the nomination Saturday, highlighting the Post’s reporting while tying him to scandal-plagued Platner.
“A volatile personality. Anger issues with women. Verbal abuse,” s aid a narrator in a 30-second ad for the Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate Republican leadership-aligned super PAC. “It’s not Graham Platner. It’s Troy Jackson.”
Yet, some members of the party are feeling optimistic – even excited – about Jackson’s candidacy, suggesting he represents an earlier version of the Democratic Party brand.
The Democratic Party “turned its back on ... fundamental values – that’s working class values, union values and became a kind of Washington-insider elite,” Peter Blachly, a Jackson delegate from Bath, Maine, told The Hill. “I think Troy represents a kind of renaissance and a rebirth of those core values of the Democratic Party that regular people really want to…
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