Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, the Democrat on track to face U.S. Sen. Susan Collins in November, had to pay $4,600 in late state income taxes last year.
The longtime state lawmaker and logger from the Aroostook County town of Allagash was hit with a state tax lien last August over unpaid taxes dating back to 2020, according to Maine Revenue Services records. It was released two months later, in October, after he paid the debt that his campaign attributed to an error by his tax preparer.
The stumble, found by the BDN in a search of public records, surfaces as Jackson prepares to run one of the most closely watched Senate campaigns in the country. He has risen in Maine politics on the strength of a working-class biography that includes a childhood in poverty spent mostly with a single mother who had him at age 16.
“I know what it’s like to punch a clock, live paycheck to paycheck,” he said in a statement launching his gubernatorial campaign last May.
The lien was originally addressed to the Augusta apartment that Jackson rented while serving in the Maine Senate, but the subsequent release listed his longtime home in Allagash. He left his seat after the 2024 election following a 20-year career in both legislative chambers.
“An error made by Troy’s tax preparer in 2020 resulted in an underpayment that he was not made aware of until years later,” the campaign said in a statement. “Once he learned of it, he promptly paid the full amount and the lien was released.”
This isn’t the first time that Jackson’s Augusta address has come up in public. In 2023, a Republican lawmaker filed an ethics complaint alleging that Jackson had misrepresented his residency after buying a home in Augusta in 2019 and signing a mortgage agreement designating it as his principal residence.
He continued to list Allagash as his home on campaign and legislative filings. The Maine Ethics Commission declined to investigate, saying it could only weigh in on campaign finance issues, not any broader residency dispute. Jackson has since sold that home.
Jackson unsuccessfully ran in the 2014 primary in Maine’s 2nd District and led Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns in Maine in both 2016 and 2020. He ran for the Democratic nomination for governor in the 2026 primary, finishing in third place, well behind nominee Hannah Pingree.
That looked like the end of Jackson’s 2026 ambitions until Graham Platner withdrew from the Senate race earlier this month following a rape allegation from an ex-girlfriend first reported by Politico. Jackson had already filed paperwork to explore a bid the day before.
Jackson is the latest in a line of Maine politicians whose personal finances have drawn scrutiny once they sought higher office. Former Gov. Paul LePage’s part-time residence in Florida was an issue in his 2010 and 2022 campaigns. The disclosure of years of tax problems plagued 2006 Republican gubernatorial nominee Chandler Woodcock toward the end of his campaign.
Jackson, 58, is not yet the official Democratic nominee, but he virtually swept last weekend’s Democratic county caucuses, locking down the vast majority of delegates to the Saturday state convention in Bangor that will officially pick the winner.
He’ll face Collins, 73, who was first elected to the seat in 1996 and is seeking a sixth term. Jackson led her narrowly in the first poll of the race since he became the presumptive nominee, which was released by the University of New Hampshire on Tuesday.
