“就让特洛伊做回特洛伊”：缅因州民主党人如何击败苏珊·柯林斯参议员，同时平息质疑

‘Let Troy be Troy’: How Maine Democrats’ hope to beat Sen. Susan Collins is working to quiet doubters

2026-10-06T09:00:44.993Z / CNN

As Democrats enter the homestretch of their longtime quest to defeat Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins, they are placing their hope in a fifth-generation logger from the state’s rural north who speaks with a distinct Allagash accent, displays an apparent penchant for boba tea and has never been this close to the national spotlight before.

This was not how it was supposed to go.

But more than two months after Democrats picked Troy Jackson to replace Graham Platner following allegations of sexual assault that Platner has denied, his supporters, critics and other observers agree on one thing.

“Troy is definitely unusual,” said Douglas Rooks, a longtime Maine writer and historian who worked in the state legislature when Jackson first arrived there in 2002. “He is very different from anybody who’s been elected in a long, long time from Maine and many other places.”

Jackson’s quirkiness is set to be tested in a crucial period of the campaign beginning Tuesday night, when he and Collins are set to meet for the first of four debates in 10 days. And this weekend, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) is set to visit Maine for three rallies with Jackson, testing whether the progressive working-class politics they share play as well in a general election as they do in a primary.

“Jackson is who he is, and I think in this election, people like that,” said Jim Melcher, a political science professor at the University of Maine at Farmington. But he also said Jackson would have a “learning curve” on navigating the Senate compared to Collins that could work against him.

Jackson has hit a few road bumps recently. A September story from New York magazine aired out concerns he’s being overly managed by out-of-state consultants, a video of him enjoying a boba tea drew widespread ridicule onlinehttps://www.facebook.com/TroyJacksonmaine/videos/sips-boba-tea-/1789304855601895/, and he had to apologize for theorizing about why Jews may not want to call the war in Gaza a genocide.

A CBS News/YouGov poll released Friday showed some warning signs for Jackson. Forty-three percent of Democrats said they wished someone else were their nominee, and nearly a fifth of voters who disapproved of Trump said they still supported Collins. The poll found the Senate race tied.

Jackson, who lost his primary bid for Maine governor earlier this year before the Senate nomination came open, is still working to galvanize some former Platner loyalists. Scott Niemi, an organizer who met with Platner in August to pitch him on a write-in campaign that Platner ultimately rejected, said he supports Jackson but raised questions about his ability to excite Democrats.

“Obviously he doesn’t carry the same energy as Graham, and he definitely doesn’t have the speaking ability that Graham did,” Niemi said. “I think that’s kind of hurt him the most. We went from someone who’s fiery, had a lot of fight in him, to a guy who’s a bit on the calm side, which I can appreciate, but we want someone who can go to Washington and fight for us.”

Jackson has insisted he is staying the course.

“Nothing has changed,” Jackson said during a call-in program on Maine radio Thursday when asked about the New York magazine story. “This campaign has the same people working on it that it did during the governor’s race. At the end of the day, this campaign is for anyone and everyone who wants to beat Susan Collins and Donald Trump and have a government that works for them.”

Cathy Breen, a Jackson supporter who served with him in the state Senate, said he is “in brand new waters, which I’m sure is disorienting.” But she said she was confident in his campaign and strategy, noting he “absolutely knows what happened” in 2020 when Maine Democrats nominated a more traditional politician, state House Speaker Sara Gideon, and had their hopes dashed by Collins.

“Mainers can smell Washington like nobody’s business, and they don’t like Washington telling them what they do,” Breen said. “I think Troy’s done a really good job of staying true to his story.”

Jackson has made at least 50 public appearances since he replaced Platner in late July, according to his campaign. He has leaned into making the race a referendum on Collins’ support for Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade, an issue that national Democrats believe is key to peeling off women who have historically broken for Collins.

Democrats were at least initially excited that Jackson mixed Platner’s outside image with far more government and political experience. But Republicans are working to use his resume against him.

“The fact is, Troy is a 20-year Augusta insider, which poses a problem for him, since Mainers know that’s where so many of their biggest problems come from,” Collins campaign spokesperson Blake Kernen said in a statement.

Collins remains under pressure to answer for a recent ProPublica story detailing an alleged pay-to-play scheme involving her office, a report she’s strenuously disputed. And President Donald Trump continues to be a major vulnerability for her in a state where he is deeply unpopular.

Some Jackson supporters say his mission is to strike more of a balance between his Aroostook County folksiness and the gravitas that Mainers have come to expect from their senators, including on policy issues. Rooks said the transition from the small world of state politics – the Maine Legislature is part-time – to a federal race can trip up politicians and cause “a lot of vertigo.”

“If I were helping him with debate prep, which I am not, my thing would be, ‘let Troy be Troy,’ and let’s just make sure on substance, he’s sharp,” said Nirav Shah, who also tried to replace Platner but dropped out as Maine Democrats coalesced around Jackson.