The Boston Globe29%
Troy Jackson dominates Maine Democratic caucuses, emerges as frontrunner to face Susan Collins 37%
By James Pindell0%
7/19/2026, 4:56:05 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 7 faulty reasoning types, including Halo Effect, Confirmation Bias, and Optimism Bias, with Framing Effect as the most egregious example at 46.1% saturation with 483 hits. Analysis detected 707 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,047 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 43.3% and a BS Rank of 37% (13,960 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 63.80% of the article peer group.
Troy Jackson dominates Maine Democratic caucuses, emerges as frontrunner to face Susan Collins
SANFORD, Maine – Graham Platner’s stunning withdrawal as Maine’s Democratic Senate nominee left Democrats here confused about what would happen next in their attempt to unseat entrenched Republican incumbent Susan Collins in November.
But after a dozen days of organized chaos came clarity this weekend with one candidate all but locking up the nomination.
The overwhelming leader was Troy Jackson, a former state Senate president and fifth-generation logger from the state’s remote northern potato-farming county.
Among all the candidates, Jackson was seen as the closest thing to Platner.
Months earlier, Platner had named Jackson as his top pick for governor, the pair campaigned together routinely, and both were endorsed by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
Following Platner’s drop-out over allegations that he raped a girlfriend five years ago, Jackson sought to distance himself from Platner personally while hugging the grassroots base that had elevated Platner to win the primary with 72 percent of the vote and outlast a two-term incumbent governor.
Jackson, meanwhile, finished third in the Democratic primary for governor on the same day.
Jackson clearly wasn’t penalized by activists for his previous link with Planter.
In fact, he so dominated county caucuses on Saturday and Sunday that his top two rivals — Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and Nirav Shah, former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention — both ended their campaigns.
Dan Kleban, co-founder of Maine Beer Company, also dropped his bid and endorsed Jackson.
In 3 of the state’s 16 counties, Jackson’s supporters won every delegate spot.
In five others, he won all but one delegate.
That included Cumberland County, the state’s largest by population, where Jackson won 148 out of 149 delegates, with the lone outlier uncommitted.
In total, Jackson amassed 456 out of the 500 elected delegates over the weekend.
When added to the 101 existing state committee members who vote, that is well over the 302 needed to secure the nomination at next Saturday’s convention.
If the results seemed swift, it was partly out of necessity and partly due to Jackson’s ability to organize supporters quickly.
Maine state law only gave Democrats two weeks to name a replacement.
While the convention will formally do so two days before the deadline, Democrats appear to have pulled off the entire process in 12 days— unless something unforeseen happens in the next week.
Jordan Wood, who lost a congressional primary last month, stressed in an interview with the Globe on Sunday that he was vowing to stay in the contest through the convention.
According to a Bangor Daily News tabulation, he had only two supporters elected as delegates over the weekend.
It is unclear whether that remains a tenable position for Wood.
It is also unclear whether CNN and the Bangor Daily News will proceed with their joint debate on Thursday night, or whether Jackson would even bother participating if they do.
The caucuses themselves were remarkably efficient affairs.
Over 17,000 registered Democrats voted in their home county caucuses, according to state party officials.
After being verified, each voter received an email and text message with a unique web link to their ballot.
At York County’s caucus on Sunday morning, hundreds filled the Sanford High School theater.
For two hours, Democrats mingled, gathered, and checked in at their preferred candidate’s campaign table, if one was set up.
Jackson rallied his supporters outside.
Then, within 10 minutes of the formal meeting starting, voting got underway without any speeches from the campaigns.
The more organized campaigns, like Jackson’s and Shah’s, offered supporters shirts to wear (dark blue for Jackson, green for Shah) and handed out a slate of campaign-aligned delegates to vote for on the ballot.
This slate-of-delegates approach appeared helpful to voters looking to support a specific Senate campaign.
In York County, for example, 444 candidates ran for 84 delegate and 17 alternate delegate positions.
Each candidate was listed by name, with no indication of whom they supported.
Due to the sheer number of votes to be cast, voters were given 90 minutes to complete their ballots.
Voters could be seen holding a piece of paper with their preferred campaign’s delegate selections in one hand while casting votes on their phones with the other.
As voting began, a line of a few dozen people seeking technical help from party staff and volunteers slowly dissipated after 20 minutes.
County party officials noted that many voters stayed home and cast their ballots via phone or computer.
Jackson’s dominant performance will likely pressure the remaining candidates to leave the race to make unifying the party easier ahead of Saturday’s convention.
The snap election process across the state — driven largely by party insiders and activists — appeared to give a significant leg up to candidates who ran for governor a month ago, like Jackson, who had already built statewide organizations over the past year.
As Jackson likely spends the next week trying to unite Democrats behind him and quickly scale up a Senate campaign with roughly 100 days until Election Day, one immediate concern is fundraising.
Jackson raised the least money among the major candidates for governor this year.
Republican groups backing Collins have already spent or reserved over $112 million in ads, while Democrats have reserved only half that amount, according to tracking service AdImpact.
Given Maine’s critical role in deciding control of the U.S.
Senate next year, however, Democrats nationwide could flood the state with funds.
For Democrats to flip the Senate, they must accomplish two goals: win competitive elections in states currently held by Democrats -- namely New Hampshire, Michigan, and Georgia -- and flip four states currently held by Republicans.
Maine is the only state with a current Republican senator up for election this year in a state that Kamala Harris won in 2024.
“We know the nation has been watching this wild process up here, but it seems to be coming to a quick conclusion in a way that surprised me,” said Ethan Standel, a 32-year-old Jackson supporter from Saco who voted in person on Sunday.
James Pindell is a Globe political reporter who reports and analyzes American politics, especially in New England.
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