Saundra Pelletier is the last candidate standing against Troy Jackson heading into Saturday’s Democratic Senate nominating convention, and she wants delegates to know it.
A longtime healthcare executive and CEO of Evofem Biosciences, Pelletier pressed thousands of listeners in a conference call Thursday night to urge their delegates to keep an open mind, suggesting the Maine Democrats’ process had left delegates resigned to crown a “king” linked to the “status quo.”
“Call your delegate … and say, ‘You know what? We want you to hear out Saundra Pelletier. We think a political outsider is refreshing,” she said.
Pelletier has put real money behind her message. She took out full-page ads in the Bangor Daily News and Portland Press Herald this week and held the Thursday “telephone town hall” that her campaign said drew 49,000 people. Her campaign’s furious texts and calls aiming to get Democrats to hear her was the subject of a Reddit thread headlined “Who the f—- is Saundra?”
“I’ve started telling candidates that I’m gonna vote for the person who texts me the least,” one user wrote. “Frankly, I’m not sure I’m kidding.”
In an interview, Pelletier said she felt “really bad” if the mass texts upset anyone. She noted that she’s a realist who knows she is unlikely to win on Saturday but acknowledged longtime political ambition and framed the two-week sprint as a launching pad for future political runs.
“I’m going to have fun and meet people,” she said. “I want people to know that I am a smart, tenacious, committed woman who’s here to stay. If this isn’t my time, my time is coming.”
The party’s 600-member convention in Bangor on Saturday, will cap a tumultuous period for Maine and national Democrats after Platner dropped out earlier this month after an ex-girlfriend alleged to Politico that he raped her in 2021. Jackson locked down a majority of convention delegates at last weekend’s county caucuses, leading his top rivals to drop out.
Pelletier is the last one left, and both of them will get five-minute speeches to persuade delegates. There is little for them to go on. She posted her first campaign video last Friday, just a day before the county caucuses began. Her campaign filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday, with the campaign committee’s address listed in California.
She has not disclosed her spending but has cited her personal wealth as a reason why she could reject corporate money. She bought a house in Caribou in 2025, and still owns a house in San Diego, where her company was previously based and where her son attends college.
In her 20-minute call and an interview, she focused on her rise as a business leader and fighter for women’s health and reproductive rights. Her company had long stood up to insurance companies to make more birth control options available, she said.
She also favors higher taxes on the wealthy and large companies, greater investment in rural hospitals, education and opportunities for families and dismantling and restructuring Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“We can’t just anoint someone,” she said of Saturday’s convention. “My voice deserves to be heard. No vote has been cast yet and they should not just vote for someone familiar to them. I’m hoping tomorrow, in my five minutes, I can convince some of them.”