Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson is on track to become the official Democratic Senate nominee as the Saturday convention will cap a surprisingly smooth process to replace Graham Platner.
A fifth-generation logger, Jackson’s deep labor ties and union support helped him dominate the delegate nominating contests. His performance was so impressive that the other serious Maine Senate contenders — including former director of Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention Nirav Shah, who placed ahead of Jackson in the gubernatorial primary they both ran in this cycle — dropped out of the race. A planned debate was cancelled, and Saturday’s nominating convention has turned into more of a Jackson campaign party.
The must-win race looked dire for Democrats until just a few weeks ago, with Platner incrementally sinking under the weight of his collective scandals until a rape allegation ended his campaign. After his resounding win in the primary, many in the party thought they were stuck with Platner, though increasingly wary of yet-undiscovered skeletons in his closet.
When Platner dropped out, Maine Democrats had only a few weeks to pick his replacement. Dangers abounded: In a fiercely anti-establishment atmosphere, the state party could not be seen as anointing a favored successor. The pool of options mostly consisted of uninspiring also-rans who failed to secure the Democratic nomination in other races. And a lightning-fast timeline meant less time to vet the candidate, a frightening proposition to those who just watched Platner’s star fall.
Jackson allayed some of those fears. Having campaigned with Platner, he shared the former Senate candidate’s progressive policies, and was a natural home for many Platner supporters. Still, he’s been in Maine politics since 2000 and was chosen to lead the state Senate in 2018 after many years in leadership roles, making him less of an unknown. He has a track record of winning races in deep red parts of Maine, making him a compelling pick in a race where the Democrat will need to pick off voters who have pulled the lever for Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in the past.
But he’s not without weaknesses. As evidenced by his lackluster third place finish in the gubernatorial primary, he turned in a disappointing campaign as recently as a month ago. He’ll likely have an easier time raising money in this race, with the national spigot turned on for him, though he only has just over three months to fill his coffers.
And while he seems to lack Platner’s baggage, he also lacks his charisma. He’s not a gifted public speaker, and his recent debate performance was wooden and awkward. He began his political career as a Republican and was slow to evolve on abortion rights and same-sex marriage — though in-state Democrats forgave his heterodoxy, especially given his ability to flip and hold his state Senate district even amid the 2010 Republican wave that gave the GOP its first trifecta in Maine since 1963.
Collins has defied political gravity so far, and remains a formidable candidate. Still, there’s at least a couple early hopeful signs for Jackson: A University of New Hampshire poll released Tuesday already has him up three points on the longtime senator, 49% to Collins’ 46, and he’s already raked in $1 million.
Well at least Troy Jackson has experience and knows the playing field.
What a difference shifting a couple of words around makes, the difference between “knows the playing field” and “knows playing the field”.
Why, exactly, is it ‘surprising’ that the process was smooth? The Maine Democratic Party had plenty of time to figure out how they were doing things, and almost a week of ‘oh god, will he drop out in time?’ to line up candidates and get those candidates to sort themselves out, since they’d all had recently-active campaign operations in the field.
Can we please not ‘Dems in Disarray’ ourselves?
I mean, okay, fine. But have you heard Susan Collins lately?!? It’s not her fault she’s old, but she’s in danger of being outrun by a fencepost.
He needs to play this clip over and over.