Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson has all but locked up the Democratic nomination to challenge Sen. Susan Collins after capturing more than 470 of 500 delegate slots over a single weekend, a dominance so complete that every serious rival dropped out within hours.
Jackson, a fifth-generation logger who left the Republican Party more than two decades ago, ran the table across Maine's 16 counties on Saturday and Sunday, winning over 90 percent of available delegate slots. In Cumberland County, the state's most populous, home to Portland, his aligned delegates took all 149 seats without exception. By Sunday evening, the field had cleared. Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former public health official Nirav Shah, former congressional staffer Jordan Wood, and Maine Beer Company co-founder Dan Kleban all stepped aside or suspended their campaigns.
The convention in Bangor next Saturday now looks like a coronation. Jackson's 470-plus elected delegates will join 101 automatic delegates from the Maine Democratic State Committee, giving him an overwhelming share of the 601 total votes. Fox News reported that delegates on Jackson's slate are not technically bound to support him at the convention, but with no remaining opposition, the outcome is a formality.
Jackson's path opened only because the party's original nominee, Graham Platner, imploded. Platner, a combat veteran and oyster farmer who launched his Senate bid last August with Bernie Sanders' early backing, steamrolled the Democratic establishment and captured the nomination last month after crushing his primary competition. He received more than 150,000 votes in the June 9 primary.
But Platner had been forced on defense by a series of scandals, and the final one proved fatal. An explosive report surfaced containing an allegation of rape from a woman he previously dated. Platner denied the allegation but stepped aside earlier this month after top Democrats in Maine and across the country called on him to exit.
Jackson himself was among those who called on Platner to end his bid. The two had previously campaigned together, they appeared side by side with Sanders at a "Fighting Oligarchy" tour stop at the University of Maine campus in Orono on May 24.
The fallout extended well beyond Maine. Democratic operatives turned on their own party over the handling of the allegation, and the episode forced uncomfortable reckonings across the progressive coalition that had elevated Platner in the first place.
Gov. Janet Mills, a two-term Democrat whom Senate leader Chuck Schumer had heavily recruited to run, had already suspended her campaign this spring after trailing Platner in fundraising and polling. By the time Platner exited, the party had no obvious fallback, just a scramble.
The succession process that followed Platner's withdrawal was unprecedented. Breitbart reported that 12 Democratic candidates initially entered the abbreviated race, with a July 27 deadline to place a name on the ballot. Candidates had to collect 500 voter signatures in under three weeks, a timeline so compressed that several stumbled publicly.
Bellows, the sitting Secretary of State, gave inaccurate information during a debate, later saying, "When I need to know the facts, I will. I'll do my homework." That is not the kind of answer that inspires confidence from voters choosing a senator to represent them in Washington.
The first debate among replacement candidates took place last week at the WCSH-6 studio in Portland. The Washington Examiner noted that a fatal ICE shooting in Biddeford had thrust immigration policy into the center of the race, with Jackson and Shah calling for the abolishment of ICE and Bellows calling for ICE to cease operations in Maine. Collins, the Republican incumbent, did not need to say a word, the Democratic field was busy racing leftward on its own.
At that debate, Jackson praised Platner's campaign message on health care. "That's the thing that I think Graham did the best: talked about fighting against the health care industry and the prescription drug industry to make sure that people in this state and this country have affordable, quality health care," Jackson said.
Jackson's progressive economic credentials are not in question. He carries the endorsement of Our Revolution, the group born in 2016 out of Sanders' first presidential campaign. At a recent Our Revolution virtual town hall, Jackson laid out his platform plainly:
"This movement has always been bigger than one person. It's about taking on a system rigged against working people, fighting for 'Medicare-for-all,' strong unions, higher wages, reproductive freedom, and an economy where billionaires and corporations finally pay their fair share."
But Jackson's biography is more complicated than that pitch suggests. The New York Post reported that Jackson previously held conservative social positions, including a 100 percent rating from Maine Right to Life and a 2009 vote against legalizing same-sex marriage. He was once a conservative Republican before switching parties. Those positions will be difficult to square with the progressive base he now courts, and difficult to defend against Collins, who can point to her own moderate record on social issues.
Jackson also came in third place in last month's Democratic gubernatorial primary, which raises a basic question: a candidate who could not win a statewide primary is now the party's best option for the Senate. Shah, who came in second in that same gubernatorial race, chose to step aside rather than fight it out.
That decision by former Platner allies to clear the field suggests the party's priority is speed and unity, not necessarily the strongest general-election candidate.
Bellows dropped out Sunday morning with a statement that did not mention Jackson by name. She framed her exit around her duties as Secretary of State: "Donald Trump's attacks on our democracy are only accelerating, and the best way that I can serve our state and country at this moment is by focusing exclusively on my role as Secretary of State."
Shah's withdrawal Sunday evening was more pointed. He endorsed Jackson but included language that read less like a concession and more like a caution to the party:
"To Maine Democrats: Susan Collins will not be defeated without a united Democratic Party. And we cannot unite without treating one another with respect. No matter whom you supported in this race, I urge us all to remember that in the weeks ahead."
Newsmax reported that nearly two-thirds of the 601 convention delegates had committed to backing Jackson, confirming the breadth of his support. Collins, the outlet noted, is the only Republican senator up for reelection in a state Kamala Harris won in 2024 by roughly 7 points, a fact that makes the seat a top Democratic target regardless of who carries the banner.
Jackson responded to Shah's exit on social media: "Now it's time for all of us to come together, build the broadest possible coalition, and defeat Susan Collins. Let's get to work."
Earlier Sunday, he had posted: "Yesterday was an unbelievable huge step, but our work is not finished, not even close."
Republicans hold the Senate 53, 47, and the Maine race is among roughly a dozen nationwide that will determine whether Democrats can win back the majority. Jackson's Sunday evening social media post made clear he intends to run a populist, anti-corporate campaign against Collins: "In November, Mainers will defeat Susan Collins, and we will take back our Senate seat from the billionaires and corporations who think they own it."
Collins, for her part, has watched Democrats cycle through a recruited establishment candidate in Mills, a populist outsider in Platner, and now a former ally of that outsider in Jackson, all in the span of a few months. Platner's refusal to exit quietly and the chaotic succession process that followed have cost Democrats time, money, and credibility in a state they need to win.
Dan Jenkins, a Maine Democrat and delegate applicant, captured the frustration inside the party. "I don't think anyone's happy that we're in this situation," Jenkins told reporters. "We would have preferred that this had broken many, many months ago and then Graham had exited the race when there was a time for a democratic process."
That is the core failure. Democrats did not vet their nominee. They rallied behind a candidate who carried serious liabilities, and when those liabilities surfaced, they had no plan, just a weekend of county caucuses and a convention in Bangor.
Jackson may well be the strongest option Democrats have left. But the strongest option left is not the same thing as a strong option, and Susan Collins has been winning elections in Maine since before Jackson switched parties.
