Maine's newly minted Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson deleted more than 20 social media posts praising Graham Platner, scrubbing months of enthusiastic endorsements after Platner's ex-girlfriend accused him of sexual assault.
Jackson, a 58-year-old former lumberjack and ex-Maine Senate president, officially clinched the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins over the weekend of July 26, 2026. But his path to the nomination runs straight through the wreckage of Platner's candidacy, and Jackson spent months publicly tying himself to the man he now wants voters to forget.
Archived copies of Jackson's X account, preserved by the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, show a trail of deleted posts stretching from March through May 2026. In them, Jackson endorsed Platner, fundraised alongside him, celebrated shared labor union endorsements, and called Platner "exactly the sort of Democrat that Susan Collins and the Republican Party don't know how to handle." The New York Post reported the deletions on July 27, identifying at least 20 posts that vanished after the sexual assault allegation surfaced earlier that month.
Jackson's campaign offered a one-line explanation. A spokesperson told the Post: "The campaign removed older posts that no longer reflected Troy's position." The spokesperson added that Jackson had called on Platner to step aside after the allegation emerged.
That call came on July 7, in a post that remains on Jackson's account. But the quiet cleanup of everything that preceded it tells a different story, one of a candidate who didn't just endorse Platner in passing but built a political identity around the alliance, and then tried to make the evidence disappear.
The earliest deleted post dates to approximately March 4, 2026, when Jackson formally endorsed Platner with a video of the two men shooting pool at a bar. "It's time to upset the status quo," Jackson wrote. "I'm proud to endorse my friend, @grahamformaine."
From there, the praise only intensified. On April 26, Jackson posted a clip of Platner celebrating a labor union endorsement the two candidates shared. Four days later, after Maine Gov. Janet Mills suspended her own Senate campaign, Jackson congratulated Platner on the development. By early May, Jackson was sharing Portland Press Herald coverage of his and Platner's joint push for expanded personal time for workers.
On May 9, Jackson posted what may have been his most forceful public backing of Platner:
"Graham Platner is exactly the sort of Democrat that Susan Collins and the Republican Party don't know how to handle. It's why I endorsed him back in February, and it's why I support him now. He's building a working class movement that spans every corner of this state, from Fort Kent all the way to Kittery."
All of those posts are now gone. The Wayback Machine preserved them. Jackson's account did not.
Two Platner-related posts remain visible. One, from March 5, is a joint small-dollar fundraising appeal: "Graham and I have more small dollar donors than anyone else in our races. Not CEOs, not private equity, but nurses, loggers, truckers, and everyone else who keeps Maine running." The other, from April 9, quotes a Portland Press Herald piece comparing Jackson to Platner, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and a figure identified only as "Zohran", framing Jackson as part of a new progressive vanguard.
Why those two survived the purge while 20-plus others did not, the campaign has not explained.
The sexual assault accusation that finally brought Platner's campaign down came from his ex-girlfriend, Jenny Racicot, who went public earlier in July 2026. Platner, a Marine veteran and oyster farmer, denied wrongdoing but dropped out of the Senate race shortly after. Jackson then declared himself the obvious replacement, telling the Washington Examiner he was "very, very interested" in the nomination and believed he was "the best person" to take Platner's place.
But the assault allegation was only the final crisis in a campaign that had been unraveling for months. National Review reported that deleted social media posts reviewed by CNN showed Platner had once called himself a "communist," dismissed all police as "b******s," and said rural white Americans "actually are" racist and unintelligent. Those revelations surfaced as early as October 2025, months before Jackson began his public embrace of Platner.
And the record got worse. Breitbart uncovered a June 2019 Reddit post from Platner's archived account in which he mocked a U.S. soldier who earned a Purple Heart after being shot four times in Afghanistan, writing that the wounded servicemember "didn't deserve to live." Former Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze responded: "We don't make jokes about our brothers and sisters dying, that's not something we do." Fox News covered Platner's refusal to apologize for the deleted posts in late May 2026.
Jackson endorsed Platner in February 2026, posted the formal endorsement video in March, and continued boosting him through May, well after the "communist" and police posts had already become national news. The Purple Heart mockery surfaced on May 20, and Jackson's most effusive praise of Platner was archived just nine days earlier.
After Platner withdrew, Maine Democrats needed a replacement fast. Jackson, who had finished third in the state's ranked-choice Democratic gubernatorial primary, positioned himself as the party's best option to challenge Collins. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who had endorsed Platner and, per the Washington Examiner, had not withdrawn that endorsement even amid widespread Democratic condemnation, also backed Jackson.
Jackson clinched the nomination at a party convention over the weekend before July 27. He now heads into a general election against Collins, one of the most well-known Republican senators in the country.
But the transition from Platner ally to Platner critic has not been seamless. On July 7, Jackson posted a public demand that Platner leave the race:
"There is no place in our politics for sexual violence. Not in our party, not in any party. Graham Platner must withdraw from this race today. This is not what we stand for. Not as Democrats, not as Mainers, not as human beings."
Strong words. But Jackson left that post standing while deleting the 20-plus messages that showed just how closely he had aligned himself with the man he was now condemning. The result is a curated timeline: the denunciation stays, the partnership vanishes.
Republicans seized on the deletions. RNC press secretary Natalie Baldassarre told the Post that Jackson "is trying to erase his past and is shape-shifting like a political chameleon in order to gain power." She added that Jackson "stood hand-in-hand" with Platner "until the bitter end, and no amount of deleted posts is going to change his past."
The broader Democratic fallout from the Platner scandal has extended well beyond Maine. Multiple party figures who endorsed Platner have been forced to reckon with their support. Rep. Ro Khanna publicly admitted he got it wrong on Platner after the allegation emerged.
Jackson's case is different in degree. He didn't just endorse Platner once and move on. He spent months building a joint political brand, shared fundraising, shared policy platforms, shared union endorsements, shared social media content. The Wayback Machine shows the full scope of that effort. Jackson's X account no longer does.
The 2026 Senate map already favors Republicans, who hold 53 seats to the Democrats' 45 plus two independents. Maine was supposed to be one of Democrats' best pickup opportunities, with polls showing widespread voter dissatisfaction with Collins. Platner's implosion and Jackson's scramble to replace him have turned that opportunity into a liability.
Jackson's campaign says the deleted posts "no longer reflected Troy's position." That is technically true, his position changed the moment the accusation went public. What the campaign has not addressed is why Jackson held that position so enthusiastically for so long, through scandal after scandal, until the one allegation arrived that made the partnership politically fatal.
Deleting posts does not delete the record. It just tells voters which parts of it a candidate would rather they never saw.
