Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson appears on track to clinch the Democratic nomination for Senate after his top competitors made weekend exits from the race.

Jackson had the support of a vast majority of delegates who were elected across the state’s counties over the weekend to serve at a convention Saturday to pick a replacement for Graham Platner, a progressive who won the nomination in a June primary but ended his campaign earlier this month in the face of a sexual assault allegation.

“We’re well on our way to getting the government that we f—ing deserve,” Jackson said in a video of him speaking to supporters posted to social media Saturday.

A logger from Allagash in northern Maine, Jackson ran for governor this year, placing third in the ranked-choice Democratic primary. He had campaigned alongside Platner and was backed by the progressive group Our Revolution and California Rep. Ro Khanna, as well as several labor groups. 

Like Platner, Jackson has centered his campaign on working-class issues. He has called for “Medicare for All” and dismantling the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and has pledged not to vote for sending U.S. taxpayer dollars to aid Israel’s military. 

While the elected delegates aren’t bound to vote for a specific candidate, other Democratic hopefuls were quick to drop out of the contest and rally around Jackson in the race to take on longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

“I am stepping aside, and I am doing it for exactly the same reason that led me to get in: we must defeat Susan Collins, and the Democratic Party must be unified to do it,” Nirav Shah, a former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention who also ran for governor, said in a statement Sunday. 

Shah’s announcement followed one earlier in the day from another former gubernatorial candidate, Shenna Bellows, who said she wanted to focus on her work as Maine secretary of state. Jordan Wood, a former Capitol Hill aide, and Dan Kleban, a co-founder of Maine Beer Company, also ended their campaigns Sunday and said they would support Jackson.

“This is a man who cares deeply about showing up for his community and for all of us,” Wood, who lost the Democratic primary for the battleground 2nd District last month, said in a video shared on social media. “I know that Troy is somebody who has the courage, not just to beat Susan Collins, but to serve our state in the U.S. Senate.”

Seven other candidates remained in the race on Monday, according to the Maine Democratic Party’s website, including David Costello, who placed third in the June Senate primary. 

Delegates will officially pick the party’s next nominee Saturday at a convention in Bangor. But Jackson’s apparent lead in delegate support suggests it may not be as drawn-out of an affair as was expected. His campaign said 481 of the 500 delegates who were elected at county conventions this weekend were supporting the former state legislator.  

Assuming he secures the nomination, Jackson will move on to a general election matchup against Collins, the only Senate Republican representing a state won by Kamala Harris in 2024. He’ll have to unite Democrats across the state who may be shaken from Platner’s abrupt rise and fall in the face of a rape allegation from a former girlfriend, which he has denied. 

Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the Senate race in Maine a Toss-up.