Troy Jackson, a former Maine state Senate president who appears poised to be the Democratic nominee for Senate, is a bit more careful about how he articulates his views than is Graham Platner, who dropped out of the race following rape allegations.
Jackson is “very close to Platner philosophically, but probably not as extreme in his rhetoric,” Henry Olsen, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told JNS.
James Melcher, a political science professor at the University of Maine at Farmington, told JNS that Jackson is “very similar to Platner ideologically” and that the two appeared together before Platner was accused of rape.
Jackson has been more focused on state and local politics and is “significantly less likely to place as much emphasis on foreign policy, war and Israel as Platner,” Melcher told JNS.
Both Jackson and Platner have accused Israel of “genocide.” Platner had a tattoo with Nazi symbolism that he has since covered up and that he denied recognizing as a Nazi symbol. Some who used to be close to him said that he bragged about it being a Nazi symbol.
Olsen told JNS that he knew early on that Jackson, who has drawn widespread support from delegates ahead of the party’s state convention, would win.
“I could see from the candidate statements that overwhelmingly people who said that they would support Troy Jackson were getting elected, while virtually nobody who said they would support anybody else was getting elected,” he said.
Over the weekend, each of the state’s 16 counties held a delegate meeting, collectively electing 500 delegates to vote at the party’s convention in Bangor on July 25 to select Platner’s replacement.
Jackson stated on Monday that 481 of the 500 support him. The 500 and 101 members of the Maine Democratic State Committee will vote at the convention, according to Olsen.
“With all these candidates having withdrawn, it looks like it’ll be a Troy Jackson coronation,” he told JNS. “But there may actually have to be a vote taken.”
Melcher told JNS that “Jackson crushed all opposition pretty much in every county—100% pledged to him in some cases.”
“His organization got word out about who they wanted chosen and communicated it well,” the professor said.
Jackson stated on July 9 that “anybody with eyes and a heart knows the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza.” He added that as a senator, he would never vote for U.S. military aid to Israel.
Olsen and Melcher think that the general election between Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Jackson will be close.
Olsen told JNS that Collins has $11 million in the bank and a “large degree of popularity” in the state, but Jackson is not as well-known and finished third in the state’s gubernatorial primary last month.
“It’s a Democratic-leaning year. This is a Democratic state, so you have to think that even with everything, Collins, at the moment, probably only has a 50-50 chance of winning,” Olsen said.
Melcher told JNS that current polling is within the margin of error.
“Collins may have a slightly better chance, but this race could go either way,” he said.
