BANGOR, Maine – With just over 100 days to go until the midterm elections, former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson officially clinched the Democratic nomination for Senate at a party convention here Saturday, setting up a marquee fall matchup against longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Jackson will replace Graham Platner, who withdrew as the nominee just over two weeks ago after an allegation of sexual assault, which he denies. “This process came together faster than any of us expected,” Jackson said in his victory speech before the gathered delegates and party officials at the Cross Insurance Center. “But this is important. The movement represented in this room did not just begin two weeks ago.” Delegates picked Jackson over pharmaceutical executive Saundra Pelletier by a vote of 566-5 during a roughly two-and-a-half hour party convention that also served as a fall campaign kickoff for the state’s Democratic faithful. “Power is never just given to working people. We have to band together and take it,” Jackson said earlier Saturday during his nominating address. “When the people in power refuse to listen, well, you have to organize. You have to stand together in solidarity together.” “That’s how we took on the companies exploiting Maine loggers, and it's how we're going to take on Susan Collins,” he said. Jackson speaks during the nominating convention in Bangor, Maine, on Saturday. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call) Jackson’s pick wraps up a chaotic few weeks for Maine Democrats, who had to convene Saturday’s convention to pick a new nominee ahead of a Monday deadline. They've been seeking to move on from Platner, who easily defeated Gov. Janet Mills in a primary last month with a populist message that resonated with Democratic voters despite a series of negative headlines that dogged his nearly yearlong campaign. Jackson, who unsuccessfully ran for governor this year, came into the convention as the prohibitive favorite after securing the support of a vast majority of delegates elected across the state’s counties last weekend to serve at the convention. Eve Breedlove, a young delegate from Penobscot County, said she’d supported Jackson in the gubernatorial race because of his support for progressive policies, which she said were similar to what Platner had campaigned on. “People still had that momentum behind him, and just with all of this happening, it’s unprecedented,” she said. “But in a way, I’m only 20 years old, so everything that’s ever happened in my life is very unprecedented." Now, Democrats are looking ahead to November, when ousting Collins, the only Senate Republican to represent a seat carried by Kamala Harris in 2024, will be critical to their chances of flipping the chamber. Democratic delegates — many of whom said they’d known Jackson for years — called the new nominee an authentic candidate who would be a strong challenger to Collins, who is seeking a sixth term in the blue-leaning state. “It’s going to be tough, but he’s got a real passionate support base,” said Melissa Smith, a Waldo County delegate who said she’d known Jackson for a decade. “People are tired of Susan Collins. She hasn’t done a town hall in what, 25, 30 years? The only way you can talk to Susan Collins is if you happen to run into her at the Hannaford [grocery store].” Delegate Danielle Bailey cheers for Jackson during the nominating convention Saturday. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call) A longtime state legislator, Jackson rose to serve as state Senate president for six years, leaving the role in 2024 due to term limits. A logger from northern Maine, his electoral career began in 2000, when he lost a race for the state House as a Republican before winning the seat as an independent two years later. In 2004, he joined the Democratic Party and went on to serve in the state Senate from 2008 until 2014, when he left for an unsuccessful bid for Maine’s 2nd District. He returned to the chamber in 2016 for what would be an eight-year stint. Jackson finished in third place last month in Maine’s ranked choice Democratic primary for governor. His top competitors from that race, including Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and former state public health official Nirav Shah, revived their campaigns this month to seek the Senate nomination but dropped out last weekend after Jackson’s campaign said a majority of the delegates had pledged to support him. Jordan Wood, who lost the Democratic primary for the open 2nd District, and Dan Kleban, a founder of Maine Beer Company who briefly ran for Senate last year before endorsing Mills, were also among the candidates who entered the snap Senate primary before ending their campaigns and rallying around Jackson. Pelletier was the only other candidate who remained in the race through Saturday. Matt Dunlap, the Democratic nominee to succeed retiring Rep. Jared Golden in the 2nd District, said Democrats running across the state were all focused on the issues motivating Maine voters. “What you’re seeing here is that that groundswell of energy that was really inspired by Platner’s campaign was really inspired by the same priorities that we’ve all been putting forward,” he said in an interview Saturday. In his remarks on Saturday morning, Jackson touted health care, union rights and a living wage for workers as top priorities. He also stressed his support for reproductive and LGBTQ rights, two key Democratic issues on which he held more conservative positions earlier in his career. He won big cheers in the convention hall Saturday as he spoke about his support for unions, which were critical in helping elect pro-Jackson delegates at the nominating meetings last weekend. Jackson arrives to speak at the nominating convention in Bangor on Saturday. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call) Fall matchup Democrats looking to flip the Senate — a prospect that looked unlikely a year ago — have expanded the map into red-leaning states ahead of the fall campaign, but Maine remains a top target. While national groups briefly appeared ready to step back from the race before Platner’s withdrawal, party leaders immediately endorsed Jackson on Saturday after publicly opting for a hands-off approach during the past few weeks. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand said Jackson had a “demonstrated ability to win.” “A champion for 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,” the two New Yorkers said in a joint statement. Jackson told reporters on Saturday that he had not yet spoken with Schumer. He enters the general election with a significant cash disparity against Collins, whose campaign ended June with $11 million on hand, according to her second-quarter federal filings. Jackson said he expected to have the resources to win “because we’ve got the right message.” Affordable Maine, a Democratic advocacy group, on Friday released two new ads attacking Collins, one focused on a congressional stock trading ban and another on her vote to confirm Brett M. Kavanaugh, who was among the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022. But Republicans appear ready to try to tie Jackson to Platner, and to highlight reports of his hot temper while serving in the state legislature. On Saturday, Republicans called him a "Democratic socialist” and an “ineffective legislator." "Troy Jackson lost his bid to be governor and he will lose his bid to be senator. Jackson is a Democrat socialist who has only made life harder in Maine, while Susan Collins has secured $1.5 billion in funding to benefit Mainers in all 16 counties," Samantha Cantrell, a National Republican Senatorial Committee regional press secretary, said in a statement. Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC with ties to the chamber’s GOP leaders, launched a six-figure ad campaign Saturday focused on the reports about Jackson’s temperament as part of the $42 million the group has pledged to spend in Maine this year. "Chuck Schumer forcefully removed Graham Platner from the ballot against the will of Maine voters, only to replace him with a deranged and scandal-plagued political insider,” SLF spokesman Chris Gustafson said in a statement. Jackson said Saturday that he anticipated the Republican attacks while acknowledging that he’d fought with people from both parties while in the legislature. “I've cried on the Senate floor because I believe that people sent me to Augusta to deliver for them, and it's important to me,” he told reporters. “Anyone that I may have argued with, that I might have went too far and got too passionate, I apologize to. But I don’t have a problem with anyone in the legislature or in the U.S. Senate.” Other Democrats sought to more subtly address those concerns. Charlotte Warren, a former mayor of Hallowell and onetime state legislator who reportedly clashed with Jackson in 2021, said he “wears his heart on his sleeve” as she formally nominated him at the convention. “What I’ve learned about Troy in these moments: He listens. He works through disagreements, and when the fight is over he gets back to work for what he believes in, with the people he believes in,” she said.
