After 30 years in office, Republican Sen. Susan Collins thought she was going to take on Democrat Graham Platner, a political outsider and oyster farmer from Maine’s coast, in the state’s closely watched Senate race in November.
Instead, Platner dropped out amid scandal, and it is now all but certain that Collins will soon be challenged by Troy Jackson, a Maine political veteran and logger who hails from the same northern county as the sitting senator.
Maine Democrats are holding a 601-delegate party convention this Saturday to officially choose a candidate.
“He’s a genuine Mainer, authentically rural Maine, and I think that really helps,” Dan Shea, a Colby College professor of government, said of Jackson in an interview with ABC News. “Mainers are skeptical of candidates from away.”
Maine Senate President Troy Jackson attends a rally after the “No CMP Corridor” group submitted more than 75,000 signatures to election officials at the State Office Building, Feb. 3, 2020, in Augusta, Maine.
Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo
‘A very tight and tense race’
Jackson was a prominent supporter of Platner and rallied with him in Bar Harbor shortly before the June Senate primary. At the time, Jackson was running in Maine’s Democratic gubernatorial primary and was introduced on stage as “the next governor.”
Yet in the weeks following the Bar Harbor rally, everything changed for both Jackson and Platner.
Jackson lost the gubernatorial primary in a tight race against several candidates. Platner won his Senate primary but was subsequently accused by a former girlfriend of sexual assault, an allegation he’s denied. Jackson then called on Platner to drop out of the Senate race.
“There is no place in our politics for sexual violence,” Jackson in a statement at the time.
A day after Platner said he was suspending his campaign, Jackson announced that he was considering running to replace him. Although several Democrats also launched campaigns, four recently dropped out after it became clear that most delegates scheduled to attend the nominating convention support Jackson.
Jackson could officially become the Democratic nominee this Saturday, once again setting the stage for a race that could help shape control of the Senate.
“It’s going to be a very tight and tense race for three months,” Shea said.
From Allagash to Augusta
On the surface, Jackson appears to have commonalities with Platner.
They both have similar progressive political views, can often be seen without a suit and tie, and have frequently touted their appeal to blue collar voters.
Jackson attended his local public high school in the small town of Allagash near the Canadian border and was the class salutatorian when he graduated in 1986, according to state government records.
The Canadian border has long had an influence on Jackson’s political views, even predating his time as a politician. During Jackson’s time as a logger in the 1990s, he became involved in a high-profile protest against Canadian labor being used in Maine in which loggers used pickup trucks to block a road near the border.
“Canadians are great people. That’s my ancestry,” Jackson said during the rally in Bar Harbor in June. “But because of the exchange rate, their national healthcare and subsidized equipment, they’ve always been able to work for less in the industry and we’ve always been pitted against each other because of that, which is a tragedy.”
Senate President Troy Jackson is greeted by lawmakers as he arrives for joint session in the House Chamber, Dec., 5, 2018, at the State House in Augusta, Maine.
Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo
Jackson graduated from the University of Maine at Fort Kent in 2001, according to state records, and was elected to the Maine House of Representatives soon after, later serving as a state senator and becoming the state senate president.
During his first Maine State House term in Augusta, state records list that he was a member of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, a group representing hunters and fishermen.
In a handwritten financial disclosure a decade later, Jackson wrote that his occupations were being a state senator and a logging equipment operator. In later disclosures, he indicated that he also worked as a painter and as a political director for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns.
The Maine State House in Augusta, seen here on June 5, 2026, includes the governor’s office.
ABC News
Jackson is known in Maine for his left-leaning political views. He was not always a progressive though, according to the New York Times. When he initially ran for public office in 2000, he did so as a Republican. Even after becoming a Democrat, he voted against same-sex marriage being legalized in 2009 and was against abortion rights.
Jackson has since regretted his same-sex marriage vote, the Times reported, and has now advocated for abortion rights for years.
The Times also reported that Jackson lost his temper and “flung a half-empty water bottle across the room” during an argument with Democratic State Sen. Heather Sanborn four years ago.
“Troy never threw a plastic water bottle at Senator Sanborn or anyone else, and a firsthand eyewitness confirmed that the bottle was thrown away from everyone and struck no one,” a Jackson campaign spokesperson told ABC News, noting that Jackson is passionate and has had moments over the years where let his frustration get the better of him. “Firsthand witnesses have also directly disputed claims that Troy physically crowded or intimidated colleagues.”
Now, Jackson is expected to take on one of the country’s longest serving senators this November in a race with major consequences for control of the chamber in Washington.
“I wouldn’t imagine many would see him as an insider, as part of the political establishment,” Shea said. “He surely doesn’t act like it, look like it, talk like it. You know, he talks and acts like a rural Maine logger.”