Former Maine Senate president Troy Jackson announced Monday morning that he is officially running for governor and plans to launch his campaign in Kittery at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard at 11:30 a.m., according to a statement.
Mainers, he says, are “under attack from billionaires, special interests, and their friends who control Washington.”
Jackson pledged he would “fight for working people from day one.”
“Too many Democrats have lost touch with working people or shown they’re not up to the fight,” Jackson wrote. “All while Mainers struggle as prices rise, wages stagnate, and greedy corporations rake in record profits to buy off politicians.”
Jackson’s broadside against his fellow Democrats appears aimed at those currently declared candidates, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and Angus King III, son of Maine’s junior U.S. senator and former two-term governor.
It also appears to swipe against the likely candidacy of recently-resigned Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future (GOPIF) director and former Maine House speaker Hannah Pingree, whose mother, Democrat First District Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, is a multi-millionaire.
No stranger to controversy, Jackson’s last term in the Senate was marred by a would-be ethics investigation into allegations that he made false statements on a mortgage application by claiming Augusta to be his primary residence — contradicting the fact that he represented Aroostook County and also claimed Allagash as his primary residence.
[RELATED: Should Troy Jackson Worry About Leticia James’ Mortgage Fraud Investigation?]
Jackson also lost a race for selectman in Allagash.
