Troy Jackson Wins Maine Senate Seat After Tumultuous Campaign

Troy Jackson, Democratic candidate for US Senate, unseated the longtime senator from Maine, Susan Collins, on Tuesday night.Mother Jones illustration; Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily. Nearly every poll released since August showed Maine Democrat Troy Jackson leading 30-year incumbent Sen. Susan Collins. But the day before the election, most Mainers still believed Collins would win, according to the Bangor Daily News. The doubt was obvious even among Jackson’s own supporters: Just 47 percent of them actually thought he’d prevail. As it turned out, the Jackson skeptics were wrong—and Collins ought to have been more concerned. Just after midnight eastern time on Wednesday, Collins conceded to Jackson only 101 days after Jackson entered the race as a latecomer. Maine Democrats’ initial primary winner was Graham Platner, an oyster farmer with a tattoo of a Nazi symbol. Following allegations of physical abuse and sexual assault, which he denied, Platner dropped out of the race this summer. That left the party members only days to find a replacement; they settled on Jackson. A 58-year-old former logger, Jackson served for decades as a member of the Maine House of Representatives and Senate. Like Platner, he ran on a progressive populist platform, championing Medicare for All and speaking against big corporations. Maine’s Democratic Party, thrown into disarray by Platner’s messy exit, managed to rally behind him. “We did it. Working people did it…I’m so damn proud.” But in Sen. Collins, Jackson had a formidable foe. The five-term Republican incumbent has managed to hold on, at times against all expectations, in every election since 1992. Donald Trump vilified her after she broke with him on environmental issues and voted to convict him on an article of impeachment for inciting the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. He called her “absolutely atrocious” and said she should “never be elected to office again.” Jackson spent his truncated campaign slamming Collins for her corporate entanglements—for one thing, she’s one of the top data center investors in the Senate—and revelations by ProPublica about her apparent involvement in a defense contracts influence scandal. (Collins’ office denied any wrongdoing.) Jackson also tied Collins to Trump on the issue of immigration, noting that she’d voted in favor of billions of dollars for ICE and the Border Patrol After ICE agent David Brouillette killed 25-year-old Johan Sebastian Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, this July, the state quickly passed laws requiring its agencies to refuse cooperation with ICE. For her part, Collins said that more funding for body cameras for ICE could be part of the solution. “The shooting of Mr. Durán was horrific,” she said in a debate. “And it demonstrates that ICE needs further reform.” Jackson, however, has said ICE should be disbanded altogether, and has blamed Collins for failing to push back against the agency. “As a working-class person, I know exactly what it’s like to leave your house on a Monday morning and go to work. And that man did nothing wrong. And he’s not here now because Senator Collins would not push back against ICE,” Jackson said in an October debate. “I do not believe that what ICE is doing is actually helping protect us. I think it’s hurting the state.” By Tuesday morning, most polls were suggesting Jackson would soon be a senator. The polls in Maine had been wrong before—most recently in 2020, when Collins unexpectedly cruised to victory in a state Joe Biden won by 9 points. But in 2026, as the Democratic Party marched toward a senate sweep, Maine was no exception. Shortly after Collins’ concession call, Jackson took the podium at his election night party to deafening cheers. “We did it. Working people did it…I’m so damn proud to be standing here with you all tonight…or this morning, I guess, now,” Jackson said. “If you’re watching this after getting home from a shift, or sitting at the table wondering how you’re going to pay the next bill, I want you to hear something very clearly,” Jackson said. “You are sending somebody to Washington who knows exactly what that feels like.”