Maine Democrat Troy Jackson apologized after claiming Jewish residents reject calling Israel’s Gaza war a “genocide” because of the Holocaust, remarks that drew swift backlash as he challenges Sen. Susan Collins.
Fox News Digital reported that Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Troy Jackson walked back comments in which he said Jewish Mainers refuse the word “genocide” for Israel’s war in Gaza only because of Jewish persecution in the Holocaust.
Jackson made the remarks in comments to Jewish Insider and in a Tuesday interview with local media. Social media erupted the same day. He later issued a statement saying he had misspoken and apologized for the pain caused.
The episode lands in a high-stakes Maine Senate race. Jackson, the former state Senate president and a progressive backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, faces Republican Sen. Susan Collins in the Nov. 3 general election after winning the party nod at a July 25 convention in Bangor.
In the Tuesday local-media interview, Jackson did not hedge. He said people in Maine dislike the genocide label solely because they are Jewish and because of what the Holocaust means to them.
Jackson told the outlet:
"It’s unfortunate that there are people here in Maine that don’t like to use that term only because they’re Jewish and what that means to them with the Holocaust. It fits that description. It is. It’s an unbelievable thing that’s happened there that people that are innocent are being murdered, and it is a genocide,"
He has long described Israel’s campaign in Gaza as genocide and has called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal. He also opposes what he calls a “blank check” for the Israeli government and wants to end U.S. aid to Israel.
After the backlash, Jackson released a written statement that tried to separate his Gaza view from the generalization about Jewish Mainers.
Jackson said:
"I believe what’s happening in Gaza is genocide, and I also understand that word carries particular weight for many Jewish families given the Holocaust, the genocide of six million Jews. In trying to acknowledge that, I misspoke and made a generalization about Jewish Mainers’ views that doesn’t reflect what I mean to say,"
He apologized “for the pain that caused.” The campaign did not immediately respond when Fox News Digital sought further comment.
Reaction on X was immediate and bipartisan in its disgust. Dan Senor, co-author of “The Genius of Israel,” wrote that the statement “cannot be real” and “must be a dark dark dark parody.”
Fox News host Mark Levin posted, “Completely out of the closet.” Fox News political analyst Guy Benson referenced prior Democratic primary turmoil and said Jackson “could get a matching tattoo.”
Former GOP congressman Joe Walsh called it “a s---ty thing to say.” GOP consultant Matt Whitlock simply wrote, “Bro what.”
Conservative radio host and Fox News contributor Hugh Hewitt went further on the politics. He argued Jackson should not finish within 10 points of Collins, recalling how Collins “blew out the polls six years ago,” and dismissed Jackson as a “cliche volcano” recycling DSA talking points.
That DSA lane is not subtle. Jackson won Democratic Socialist backing earlier this year. His platform includes Medicare for All, higher taxes on top earners, abolishing ICE, and ending U.S. aid to Israel, the same progressive checklist that defined the primary field before rival Graham Platner left the race.
Platner abandoned his Senate bid after reports of past aggressive behavior toward women and an allegation of sexual assault, which he denied. He and Jackson had appeared together May 24 at a “Fighting Oligarchy” stop at the University of Maine’s Collins Center for the Arts in Orono. Jackson then locked up the nomination in Bangor on July 25.
Collins has already drawn contrasts on character and fitness for office, including pointed remarks about Jackson’s personal life and temperament as the race tightened.
While Jackson’s foreign-policy rhetoric dominates a news cycle, Maine voters have been clear about priorities. An August survey of registered voters put inflation and high prices first at 32 percent, with border security close behind.
Jackson’s call to abolish ICE collides directly with that border concern. His tax-and-spend domestic agenda collides with the cost-of-living anxiety already topping the poll. The genocide remark now adds a third problem: a sweeping claim about Jewish Mainers that even he had to walk back within days.
The personal file has not stayed quiet either. Coverage has detailed how Jackson fathered two children with his second cousin, a fact that sits uneasily beside any lecture on moral clarity abroad.
Separate reporting has examined how Jackson built a campaign against lobbyists while his son worked as one, undercutting the populist brand he sells on the stump.
Collins has also highlighted an older record, saying her challenger struggles to control his temper after a 1988 assault report resurfaced. Cross-party help has arrived as well, with Joe Manchin crossing party lines to back Collins in the Maine fight.
Jackson’s apology kept the core charge intact. He still calls the Gaza war a genocide. He still frames Netanyahu as a war criminal. He still wants U.S. aid cut. What he withdrew was only the claim that Jewish Mainers reject the word for tribal reasons tied to the Holocaust.
That sequence matters. First came the broad brush about an entire religious community in his own state. Then came the social-media storm. Only then came the “I misspoke” statement. Voters can weigh whether the original interview line was a slip or a window into how he processes disagreement.
Maine’s Senate race already mixes national progressive litmus tests with local realities on prices and the border. Jackson’s comments forced a different question into the mix: whether a nominee can lecture Jewish constituents about the Holocaust’s meaning one day and expect trust the next.
Collins remains the incumbent in a state that has rewarded her brand of steady, institutional conservatism before. Jackson enters the fall as the DSA-aligned alternative who must now explain why his first instinct was to reduce Jewish objections to collective trauma rather than meet them on the merits.
Jewish Mainers did not ask to be drafted into a talking point. When a Senate nominee does it anyway, the apology that follows is the least voters should demand.
