YORK, Maine — On a recent weekday evening, Troy Jackson, donning a green polo, shorts and a Red Sox cap, entered a campaign event in York, Maine, where a few dozen supporters, most of them elderly, were waiting for him — some seeing him in person for the first time.
As Jackson made the rounds, shaking hands and flashing a boyish smile, a man near the back of the room leaned over to someone next to him and said, “He needs someone to help him with his appearance.”
Democrats in Maine, committed to unseating Republican Sen. Susan Collins, are rallying around Jackson, the former state senator and logger who looks most times like he just emerged from a job site in Maine’s northern woods.
But a month into Jackson’s candidacy, voters are still adjusting to a candidate who offers a strikingly different profile from his predecessor on the ticket, Graham Platner, who for nearly a year charmed Democrats with an inspiring message about progressive change before crashing out of the race in July amid scandal.
Jackson doesn’t speak rousingly. His speech, defined by a northern Maine accent where every vowel sounds heavy, is littered with countless “you knows,” and at one point, a campaign aide called an MS NOW reporter to clarify the point Jackson had made in an interview.
Handed only 100 or so days to win over Mainers, Jackson has had limited time to ensure voters know his story. And his demure demeanor is at odds with his race against the clock. When given chances to boast about his accomplishments, he passes.
When the person introducing Jackson in York referred to bills he co-sponsored in the state Senate as “Troy Jackson” bills, the candidate offered a correction.
“Those are our bills,” he said. “I mean, I might have been the lead sponsor, but, you know, we’ve got two chambers, we’ve got committees, stuff like that.”
But for Democrats desperate to win a race that is seen as critical to retaking the Senate, Jackson’s understated personality has also become a selling point.
“Troy is just the kind of person who is focused on getting the job done and not tooting his own horn,” said Peter Howe, a United Auto Workers labor organizer in Maine who endorsed Jackson’s campaign for governor earlier this year.
Erin Oberson, a member of the Maine State Nurses Association and a staunch Jackson supporter, said when she met Jackson in 2016, he was a Bernie Sanders surrogate and introduced himself, “Hey, I’m Troy Jackson.” “It wasn’t like ‘I’m a senator,’” Oberson said. “It was ‘Nice to meet you. Tell me about yourself.’ That kind of thing.”
Bill Green, a longtime news anchor in Maine, now retired, called Jackson “a very common guy.”
“I like him. He’s a nice guy. I did stories on him when he was president of the Senate, and I remember when he was leading that strike up in the woods. I met him way back then,” Green told MS NOW, referring to a 1998 blockade of the Canadian border by Jackson and other loggers to protest the hiring of Canadian workers, an incident Jackson says catalyzed his political career.
But Green, a self-described moderate who shocked Mainers by cutting ads for Collins in her 2020 race and told MS NOW he supports her again now, doubts Jackson’s abilities.
“I think he’s a nice enough fellow, but I don’t think he’s U.S. Senate material,” he said.
Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, “is just so knowledgeable, plus she’s just so powerful and influential,” Green said. “We won’t have another senator as powerful as Susan Collins.”
Collins has used her perch atop the committee to steer infrastructure money to Maine. Just this year, she touted a nearly $20 million investment to modernize a fish pier in a coastal town near the Canadian border.
“She gets right into the weeds with people, rolls up her sleeves,” Heidi Sampson, a former Republican state legislator, told MS NOW. “Her constituent services are outstanding. Absolutely no one compares with her. If there is a need, she has the most efficient team. They address people’s concerns that are federal issues, and they come to resolution.”
Collins has manicured a reputation of working across the aisle, which has resonated with voters like Mike Knight, who owns a lumber business in Westbrook and told MS NOW that Collins “represents what I would say is a good balance.”
“Troy Jackson, I feel, is going to get into the Senate and just do whatever the Democrats want, that’s how he’s going to vote,” he said. “That is not a good balance.”
But as President Donald Trump grows increasingly unpopular, some in Maine have begun questioning her willingness to oppose the administration.
Joe Bean, an independent voter from Falmouth who votes mostly for Democrats, said in 2022 that he supported Collins in her 2020 race because, as he explained, “I see her continuing to try to be that bridge between the parties.”
But that was then. Asked by MS NOW last week if he still believes that, Bean said, “No. I don’t see that at all lately.”
Bean said he believes Collins “votes against the administration only when she’s sure that her vote doesn’t matter,” echoing an argument from Democrats, who cite her “yes” vote on a procedural motion to send the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill to the Senate floor. Collins voted against the final version of the bill, but by then it was clear the measure had sufficient support to pass, even without her.
Shawn Roderick, a Collins spokesman, called these accusations “a Democratic trope that they repeat all the time.”
“Sen. Collins takes every vote seriously — those votes reflect her position and she stands by them,” he added.
Roderick cited a Bangor Daily News review of Collins’ record, which found that she had cast 56 deciding votes that delivered victories for Democratic priorities, “the most votes of that kind by any senators against their own party over Collins’ tenure from 1997 to 2026.”
On the campaign trail, Jackson brings up Collins’ vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in 2018 after she said Kavanaugh had indicated to her that he wouldn’t vote to abolish a constitutional right to abortion.
Four years later, he joined the majority to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Democrats expect Jackson to highlight his support for abortion rights (which he previously opposed) in ads featuring women. A Democratic political consultant who plans to be involved in outside efforts to boost Jackson in the coming weeks said to expect “a lot” of ads “that are aimed towards women.”
Bean, though, is disappointed in the Democrats’ choice to replace Platner.
“Troy Jackson is not a senator,” he said. “I mean, House of Representatives, maybe. The U.S. Senate? I don’t know. He’s out of his class.”
Bean said he feels stuck with his choices.
“I don’t think I can hold my nose and vote for either right now. It’s really troubling. I just hate to be in this situation,” he said.
But he made a promise during the conversation: “Call me after, and I’ll tell you what I did.”
The post ‘Gets in the weeds’: Susan Collins’ superpower against Troy Jackson? appeared first on MS NOW.
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