Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson officially secured the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate on Sunday, capping off a fast-moving replacement process that began after Democratic nominee Graham Platner withdrew from the race earlier this month.
Meeting at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor, Democratic delegates overwhelmingly selected Jackson as their nominee, giving him 566 votes to 5 votes for fellow candidate Saundra Pelletier. The decisive margin ended weeks of speculation over who would replace Platner on the November ballot and sets up a high-profile general election against six-term U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).
Jackson accepted the nomination before an enthusiastic convention crowd, thanking delegates, campaign volunteers, union supporters, his family, and fellow Democratic candidates who entered what he described as an “extraordinary moment” for the party.
Throughout his acceptance speech, Jackson framed his campaign around organized labor and working-class voters, repeatedly drawing on his background as a fifth-generation logger from Allagash and recounting his leadership during protests by Maine loggers against Canadian timber companies. Jackson argued that the struggle of loggers decades ago mirrors the economic challenges facing working families today.
“We’re only made to feel powerless when we stand alone,” Jackson told delegates. “That’s why I entered public life.”
Jackson outlined an unapologetically progressive platform that includes Medicare for All, expanded union organizing rights, restoring abortion rights nationwide, building more affordable housing, protecting Social Security and Medicare, confronting corporate price gouging, and standing against President Donald Trump and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He also pledged to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with Maine’s LGBTQ community.
Much of Jackson’s speech focused on attacking Collins, accusing the longtime Republican senator of siding with corporate interests and wealthy donors over working families.
Jackson criticized Collins for voting with President Trump, supporting Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, backing the 2017 federal tax reform law, and opposing a congressional stock trading ban. He also revived a familiar Democratic attack by noting Collins’ 1996 campaign pledge to serve only two Senate terms.
“Thirty years later, Susan Collins is still in Washington,” Jackson said. “Who has she served?”
Jackson closed by urging Democrats, independents, and Republicans to unite behind his campaign, arguing that his movement is “not from the left” and “not from the right,” but “from the bottom.”
Saturday’s vote formally concludes a nomination process that has generated criticism from some Maine voters across the political spectrum. Following Platner’s withdrawal after winning the Democratic primary, party leaders selected Jackson through a convention of delegates rather than a statewide election, as provided under Maine law for replacing a withdrawn nominee.
While Democratic leaders defended the process as the legally prescribed method for filling the vacancy, some Democrats, independents, and Republicans questioned whether rank-and-file voters were effectively disenfranchised after more than 156,000 Democratic primary ballots had already been cast for Platner. Others argued the compressed timeline and delegate-selection process limited participation by ordinary voters.
Jackson’s political evolution is also likely to become a focal point during the general election. Once known as one of the Legislature’s few openly pro-life Democrats and a more moderate voice from rural northern Maine, Jackson has increasingly aligned himself with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party in recent years. His Senate campaign embraces many of the same priorities championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, including Medicare for All, expanded labor organizing, and broad federal economic intervention, positions Republicans are expected to use to portray him as the party’s latest progressive standard-bearer.
With the Democratic nomination now settled, attention shifts to what is expected to be one of the nation’s most closely watched Senate races. Collins will seek a seventh term while Jackson attempts to unite Democrats and attract enough independent voters to flip one of the few remaining Republican-held Senate seats in New England.
The delegate vote may have ended the Democratic Party’s nomination battle, but the campaign for one of Maine’s most consequential federal offices is only beginning.
