Washington — Maine’s fast-moving Democratic Senate contest to replace Graham Platner has sharply narrowed, with party support coalescing around former state Senate President Troy Jackson ahead of Saturday’s nominating convention.
The shift came after county-level nomination meetings over the weekend, where Democrats chose delegates for the upcoming convention. Jackson’s preferred delegate slate scored sweeping wins, prompting several rivals to end their campaigns. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows withdrew Sunday, followed by Nirav Shah, the former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention; Dan Kleban, co-founder of Maine Beer Company; and Jordan Wood, a former Senate and House candidate. Each urged Democrats to unite behind the larger objective: defeating Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November.
“Democrats don’t have a day to waste in unifying around that shared goal,” Bellows said in a statement.
Jackson appears to have all but secured the nomination after his endorsed candidates captured a majority of the 601 delegate spots that will decide the race. Although those delegates are not legally required to support him at the June 25 nominating convention, they are broadly expected to back the fifth-generation logger.
“I’ve been getting text messages all day about what a great job I did, and I didn’t do a god damn thing. All of you just smoked it,” Jackson told organizers in a Facebook video over the weekend.
Jackson, 58, has been a fixture in Maine politics for more than two decades. He entered the Maine House of Representatives in 2002 before moving to the state Senate, where he served as president from 2018 through 2024. Before launching his U.S. Senate bid, Jackson ran for governor and finished third in the Democratic primary earlier this year. A self-described “pickup truck progressive,” he has longstanding ties to independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, having worked on Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. Sanders and Platner both supported Jackson’s unsuccessful run for governor. Platner has not endorsed a candidate in the race to take his place on the ballot.
On policy, Jackson aligns closely with Sanders and the party’s progressive wing. He backs Medicare for All and a tax on billionaires, has called for abolishing ICE, and has said Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. He also opposes sending additional U.S. funding to support Israel’s military.
With the victories across Jackson’s preferred delegate slate, other candidates were left with little hope of breaking through. Kleban said that it had “become clear from the county nominating meetings that we lack a path forward.”
Maine Democrats have been scrambling to name a replacement nominee since Platner’s departure from the race earlier this month, following a woman’s accusation that he sexually assaulted her. State law gives the party until July 27 to choose a new nominee, and Democrats opted for a nominating convention designed to give Maine voters a voice in the decision.
During his gubernatorial run, Jackson would often appear on the campaign trail with Platner whenever Sanders or Rep. Ro Khanna came to town.
“Up until today, I’ve been the only candidate who actually came out and supported Graham Platner,” Jackson said during a gubernatorial debate in May. “I came out and supported Graham because I wanted somebody to change the system in D.C.”
After the allegation against Platner came out, which Platner denies, Jackson called for him to drop out of the race. “He lied to me, he lied to a lot of us,” Jackson said on MSNOW earlier this month.
For Jackson, the sprint that began with Platner’s withdrawal from the race will continue over the coming weeks, as Democrats prepare to take on Collins in less than four months.
As the sole Senate Republican seeking reelection in a state that former Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024, Democrats see the race as a key prize in November. But Collins has survived multiple challenges to reelection in her nearly three decades in the Senate, and the late entrance into the race could pose challenges for Democrats.
With 53 Republicans in the Senate, Democrats would have to flip four seats, while defending a handful of others, to take control of the upper chamber — an outcome that would be all the more difficult without Maine.
