The betting markets are proving to be a good friend of former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson as a possible Democrat replacement for Graham Platner.
Polymarket is showing Jackson beating No. 2 Nirav Shah by 55 points and No. 3 Shenna Bellows by 59 points as the default candidate in case Platner drops out of the U.S. Senate race.
Kalshi is nearly as generous to Jackson, showing him beating Bellows, the current secretary of state, 52 to 21, its bettors showing her as No. 2.
“He’s a favorite of the Platneristas,” Steve Robinson, editor-in-chief of The Maine Wire, said after Jackson filed paperwork Tuesday in trying to be the nominee. “He’s a union guy. A lot of his ex-staffers are on the Democratic State Committee.”
Shah, a fellow Democrat who joined Bellows and Shah in the party’s loser category for Maine’s gubernatorial nomination, brings up Kalshi’s rear with 18 percent odds.
All other alternatives to the embattled Platner each garner 5 percent or less, according to Kalshi.
The betting market odds are predicated on Platner, accused Monday of raping a girlfriend, of dropping out of the race against five term GOP Sen. Susan Collins.
Washington Reporter claimed earlier this week that its sources show Platner, who overwhelmingly won the U.S. Senate primary last month, tossing in the towel under pressure from Democrat leadership.
He trounced two-term-limited Gov. Janet Mills in the primary shakedown by some 50 points, enough to put her in Kalshi’s “less than 5 percent” category as a likely successor candidate.
Mills pulled out of the Senate primary race before the election was even held, claiming lack of financial support.
Polymarket puts the odds of Platner remaining as the candidate at 5.3 percent, which puts him in the losing “anyone else” category.
If Platner decides to quit the race, July 13 is the deadline for him to withdraw and have a replacement, according to the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices.
The deadline for the Maine Democratic Party to replace its nominee on the ballot is July 27, in accordance with a state law that says a party has until 5 p.m. on the fourth Monday in July of an election year to do so.
Jackson, Shah and Bellows each would bring their own specialized baggage to a race against the so-far undefeated Collins.
Jackson was accused of lying on an application for a federal housing loan. Shah proved to be a disaster managing a statewide pandemic, while Bellows couldn’t manage how to issue new license plates or run a reliable election.
Bellows also has previously lost to Collins in 2014, by 36 points – more than a 2:1 margin of defeat, effectively the second failed statewide race for her in twelve years.
Ah yes, replace the rapist, anti-semite, misogynist, nazi with a misogynist, anti-semite who hits women with thrown bottles. That’s not the improvement that the jackass party thinks it is.
Would you let him babysit your kids, date your daughter or son? He is an election denier and just all around sleaze.
How many Maine democrats realize that jackson is also a card carrying communist!
Who is troy Jackon<