‘not The Slick Choice’: Maine Dems Sweat Troy Jackson Despite Dominant Victory

AUGUSTA, Maine — Troy Jackson is a near-lock to be Maine’s Democratic Senate nominee and officially replace scandal-plagued former nominee Graham Platner on November’s ballot. But he still has to escape the shadow of Platner’s meteoric campaign and disastrous collapse.

Even as Jackson dominated the weekend’s county delegate conventions, showing organizing strength that will benefit his campaign through November, many Maine Democrats expressed frustrations with the makeshift nomination process triggered by Platner’s last-minute resignation and raised concerns about Jackson’s ability to carry the torch of the high-energy populist movement ignited by Platner.

Jackson, a progressive 5th generation logger and former state Senate majority leader, won more than three-quarters of the total delegates over the weekend, effectively clinching his spot in a head-to-head with GOP Sen. Susan Collins, a top target for Senate Democrats and the only Senate Republican running for reelection in a state Donald Trump lost in 2024.

Jackson’s delegate count was so overwhelming that all four of his major opponents dropped out of the race by Sunday evening.

But even some Jackson supporters were quick to acknowledge his weaknesses in contrast to Platner, a gifted public speaker whose candidacy thrilled and galvanized the Democratic base before a series of scandals forced him out of the race. Platner suspended his campaign two weeks ago following a POLITICO report that a woman he dated said he forced her to have sex with him, an allegation Platner denies.

Many Jackson supporters said that the logger, who finished third in a crowded gubernatorial primary last month even as Platner cruised to a primary victory, lacks his onetime ally’s magnetism. James Gale, a Jackson supporter and middle school teacher from Bowdoinham, Maine, said he felt Jackson “didn't compare to most of the others in terms of presentation” during his run for governor but has improved since joining the Senate race.

“I thought, geez, I know that he's a very popular progressive candidate. I really need him to step up his game,” Gale said. “He was campaigning alongside Graham Platner, and I think Graham Platner was the one drawing the audiences.”

Speaking to reporters in Sanford, Maine, on Sunday, Jackson appeared to recognize the dampened support among some Democrats.

“People should have an open mind,” he said. “I would want to do the same thing. If they haven’t heard a lot about me yet, or still have some questions, I mean, I’m trying to answer them for people.”

The state party’s rushed nomination process played to Jackson’s strengths as an organizer with deep union ties, but it didn’t allow independents to participate the way they could in June’s primaries, or leave much room for undecided Democrats. Some felt cut out of the process that felt less than democratic to them.

Jackson will need to win over voters like Lindsey Harwath, a healthcare worker who supported Platner in the June Democratic primary. Harwath hoped to take part in the process to replace him, but because they are not registered as a Democrat, party rules didn’t allow them to participate. Local officials in Augusta sent Harwath to sit in the back with reporters instead.

“We were not under the impression that people were going to be already coming into this process predetermined,” Harwath said of the slates rolled out by various candidates, and most successfully by Jackson. “That seems very undemocratic. That seems like rigging a process before you’ve done it.”

Jackson, who often campaigned alongside Platner during the original primaries, knows just how crucial the former nominee’s voters are to defeating Collins. His evolving stump speech has started to incorporate a clear call out to that base, without mentioning Platner by name.

“Whether you supported me from the beginning, or are still deciding, or support another candidate, there is a place for you in this movement,” Jackson told a few dozen supporters in a school parking lot in Sanford, Maine over the weekend. “Because we’re not going to defeat Susan Collins by making this movement smaller. There’s no way that that’s ever going to work.”

But for many former Platner supporters, their concern isn’t Jackson’s views — it’s his campaign style. In conversations with dozens of Democrats across the Pine Tree State this weekend, one theme came up repeatedly, even among Jackson’s supporters: He might just not have the charisma needed to beat Collins.

His gruff, halting speaking style is nowhere near as compelling as Platner’s, and a number of his supporters worried he wouldn’t be able to energize the voters Democrats need to defeat Collins in the same way.

But some said Jackson’s rugged, everyman vibe could counterintuitively be a major asset in connecting with Maine voters. He speaks with a thick, northern Maine accent, often wears baseball caps and t-shirts on the campaign trail, and can often be seen wearing a belt clip for his phone.

“He was never going to be like the pick of the consultant class,” said Josh Brockman, a 45-year-old Jackson supporter from Biddeford, Maine. “He's too much of a regular guy. He's not the slick choice.”

Some Democrats are optimistic Jackson can still beat Collins in spite of his flaws as long as the race is framed as a referendum on her tenure in Congress.

“I understand he's really not a great speaker,” said Howard Waxman, a 79-year-old Democratic voter from Bath who wasn’t backing a particular candidate in the state delegate selection meetings. “But he's going to win because people are tired of her.”Jackson, for his part, says he’s used to being underestimated.

“They said a guy from Allagash couldn’t rise to the Maine Senate, and I did,” Jackson told supporters on Sunday in Sanford.

“Now they are going to say that a grassroots campaign powered by working people cannot defeat Susan Collins,” Jackson continued. “But you know what? They are wrong again.”

But Collins is a well-known quantity in the state — many Mainers have personally met her, and she’s won five Senate terms with an assiduous focus on constituent relations. Jackson is a practical unknown by comparison.

“I mean, let's face it, Susan Collins has been in there,” said Jim Meunier, a 48-year-old Jackson-supporting custodian from Sanford. “She's kind of an institution. She's been around a long time, and I think there's people who feel comfortable, and they might be nervous about jumping ship.”