Maine's new Democratic Senate nominee built his campaign around fighting "high-priced lobbyists and corporate greed", but his own son was pulling in nearly $200,000 a year lobbying the very chamber his father ran.
Chace Jackson, son of former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, earned $182,500 in lobbying compensation during 2024 from nine clients through the Resurgam Group, a firm founded by his father's former chief of staff. The elder Jackson presided over the Maine Senate during that entire period. Maine Ethics Commission records, first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, show the arrangement persisted throughout Troy Jackson's final year leading the chamber.
Troy Jackson became the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate on Saturday after party delegates chose him to replace Graham Platner, who withdrew from the race following a sexual assault allegation he denies. Jackson now faces five-term Republican incumbent Susan Collins in November. The lobbying disclosure landed days after his convention nomination, raising immediate questions about the gap between his populist messaging and his family's financial ties to the influence industry.
In an April candidate questionnaire, Troy Jackson laid out his rationale for running in terms that left little room for ambiguity. He told voters he was fed up with the lobbying class and the damage it does to ordinary families.
"I'm tired of good bills that would help lower prescription drug costs, protect workers, stop the spraying of harmful chemicals and so much more get vetoed... All thanks to the work of special interests, high-priced lobbyists and corporate greed."
Those words sit uneasily beside the Ethics Commission records. Chace Jackson joined the Resurgam Group in 2022. The firm's founder, B.J. McCollister, had previously served as Troy Jackson's own chief of staff before leaving to start the lobbying operation. The pipeline from the Senate president's office to the lobbying shop to the Senate president's son was short and direct.
Among the Resurgam Group's nine paying clients in 2024 were Diageo, the multinational beverage giant; LKQ Corp., an automotive parts supplier; the Maine Service Employees Association; and the Maine Gun Safety Coalition. The remaining five clients were not identified in the disclosure reporting.
One client relationship stands out. While Chace Jackson lobbied on behalf of Diageo, the Maine Senate, led by his father, voted to advance a bill that would have allowed liquor companies to ship spirits directly to consumers. A legislative committee had already recommended the bill not pass. Troy Jackson's chamber pushed it forward anyway. The measure ultimately died in the Maine House.
The sequence raises an obvious question: did the Senate president's son lobby his father's chamber on behalf of a corporation, and did that chamber then override a committee recommendation favorable to that corporation's interests? The Newsmax report and the underlying Free Beacon investigation lay out the timeline but do not allege any direct coordination or legal violation. No Maine Ethics Commission enforcement action has been reported.
Troy Jackson's campaign responded by noting that the lobbying payments went to the Resurgam Group rather than directly to Chace Jackson, and that Jackson has consistently fought for working Mainers. That distinction, firm versus individual, does not change the fact that Troy Jackson's son worked at the firm, or that the firm's revenue came from clients with business before the body Troy Jackson led.
The Diageo arrangement was not the only overlap between Chace Jackson's client roster and his father's policy moves. The Maine Gun Safety Coalition also paid the Resurgam Group during 2024. That same period, Troy Jackson shifted from a longtime pro-Second Amendment stance to supporting a 72-hour waiting period for firearm purchases and changes to Maine's "yellow flag" law, the state's version of a red-flag statute that allows temporary removal of firearms from people deemed dangerous.
Jackson's broader record has already drawn scrutiny from Republicans who argue his positions are far to the left of Maine's electorate. Collins has described Jackson's political evolution bluntly, calling him "a Bernie bro," a reference to his role leading Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign in Maine. Jackson has long aligned with progressive causes including Medicare for All and abolishing ICE.
Whether Jackson's gun-policy reversal was driven by conviction, political calculation, or something else, the timing invites scrutiny. A candidate who spent years defending Second Amendment rights changed course while his son's firm collected fees from a gun-control organization lobbying the chamber the candidate controlled.
One detail from the Free Beacon's reporting sharpens the picture further. Chace Jackson's lobbying activity dropped from nine clients in 2024 to zero in 2026, after Troy Jackson left the Legislature. The decline suggests the Resurgam Group's value to clients may have been tied, at least in part, to the access that came with having the Senate president's son on the payroll.
Jackson's path to the nomination was itself unusual. He entered the race only after Platner's withdrawal under the cloud of a sexual assault allegation. Jackson quietly removed more than 20 social media posts supporting Platner after the accusation surfaced, and he went on to sweep the delegate vote after every major rival exited the contest.
Jackson's campaign says it raised more than $1 million after he entered the Senate contest. Collins, by contrast, has built a war chest of $16 million, giving her a commanding financial advantage in what Republicans hope will be a straightforward hold of a blue-leaning state's Senate seat.
Jackson is a fifth-generation logger from rural Aroostook County in northern Maine, one of the state's most heavily Republican areas. He first entered politics after leading a loggers' blockade along Maine's border with Quebec in the late 1990s, protesting the hiring of Canadian workers who were driving down pay for American loggers. He later switched his party registration from Republican to Democrat and rose through the state Legislature to become Senate president, serving from 2018 to 2024.
At a recent campaign event, Jackson framed the race against Collins in populist terms, arguing that "when the stakes are at the absolute highest, too often she stood with Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and the other big corporations that already have all the power." That line of attack, powerful interests versus working people, is the same message the lobbying disclosure now complicates.
No one disputes that lobbying is legal, or that a grown son can choose his own career. But voters have a right to weigh the distance between a candidate's rhetoric and his family's income stream. Troy Jackson told Maine he was running against the lobbyists. The Ethics Commission records show one of those lobbyists was sitting at his dinner table.
