Maine Democrats are expected to formally select former state Senate President Troy Jackson as their U.S. Senate nominee on Saturday, bringing a two-week rush to find a replacement candidate to a close.
The scramble began when Graham Platner stepped down from the race on July 10 following sexual assault allegations, which he has denied.
Jackson — a fifth-generation logger and one-time Republican from northern Maine — effectively secured the nomination last weekend when his backers dominated the state party’s delegate selection process. His top competitors dropped out following his strong performance.
The campaign received a significant financial boost after that, pulling in more than $600,000 from nearly 25,000 donors between Sunday and Wednesday alone. By Wednesday, Jackson’s team announced total fundraising had surpassed $1 million since he entered the abbreviated race earlier this month.
Approximately 600 delegates will cast votes at a party convention in Bangor to make the nomination official. Jackson and Saundra Pelletier — a wealthy CEO of a biopharmaceutical firm — are the only two candidates still standing in a contest that once featured 13 contenders.
Once Jackson accepts the nomination, he will have 101 days to mount a campaign against five-term Republican Senator Susan Collins, who has used her seniority and her position as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee to direct funding to Maine. Collins is considered a vulnerable incumbent.
Collins stands as the only Republican senator seeking reelection in a state that Democrat Kamala Harris carried in 2024, making Maine a prime opportunity for Democrats hoping to flip the chamber and gain leverage during the final stretch of President Donald Trump’s administration.
Republicans currently hold a 53-47 Senate majority. A Democratic win in Maine would help the party’s path to a majority, while a Republican hold would narrow Democrats’ options.
A University of New Hampshire poll released this week showed Jackson holding a slim lead over Collins among likely general election voters.
Collins, 73, is a moderate with an $11 million campaign fund. She was last reelected in 2020 by nearly 9 percentage points, even as Maine voters chose Democrat Joe Biden over Trump by a comparable margin. Harris, who herself became a replacement nominee after Biden abruptly exited the 2024 race, won Maine by roughly 7 percentage points.
Political analysts expect affordability, Trump, and immigration to dominate the general election conversation. Jackson has called for eliminating U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — an agency that has been involved in several high-profile deaths this year, including a 26-year-old Colombian man killed in Biddeford, Maine, on July 13.
Collins voted last month in favor of $70 billion in immigration enforcement funding without any ICE reforms, though she has called for a halt to the agency’s traffic stops. Trump has since pushed back, saying such stops must go on and calling them one of the agency’s most important and effective tools.
Social issues are also expected to play a role in the race. Jackson currently supports abortion rights and same-sex marriage, though he opposed both throughout much of his state legislative career — positions he did not change until his second Senate term in 2016. His earlier anti-abortion voting record was featured in campaign ads targeting him during his unsuccessful run for governor in Maine’s primary earlier this year.
Whether Republicans will run similar ads in the Senate race remains uncertain, but GOP officials say Jackson’s past stance gives Collins some cover over her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court — a confirmation that ultimately led to the end of federal abortion rights protections.
