Troy Jackson hasn’t spoken with Graham Platner, who he’s replacing on the ballot for US Senate.
After becoming Maine’s Democratic U.S. Senate nominee at a Bangor convention Saturday, Troy Jackson told reporters it has been weeks since he spoken with the man he’s replacing on the ballot: Graham Platner.
The oyster farmer’s populist campaign roused labor unions and progressives, many of them longtime Jackson supporters, before collapsing earlier this month after Politico reported that an ex-girlfriend alleged Platner had raped her.
Jackson, a former logger from Allagash, told reporters in a news conference Saturday that, “people are still angry about what happened” with Platner’s scandal-plagued campaign.
He said he had not yet spoken with Platner, once a strong ally who campaigned alongside Jackson during Jackson’s unsuccessful gubernatorial bid, since the Politico story broke. But he said that there wasn’t much daylight between his policy vision and Platner’s message, which galvanized many Democrats aiming to oust the five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins and retake control of the Senate.
“His campaign was about the issues,” Jackson said of Platner. “If you want Medicare for all … a fair taxation system …I’ve been fighting for that forever. We don’t have to lose that momentum.”
Jackson nodded to his lack of polish as a politician, even though he roused Democrats to their feet several times before nearly 600 delegates voted to name him the nominee.
“I’m not a show horse,” he said. “I’m a work horse.”
Collins has far more cash on hand and Republican groups are already investing tens of millions of dollars in what’s expected to be the fourth-most expensive Senate race in the country in terms of ad spending, which AdImpact projects could reach almost $400 million.
The Republican senator has painted Jackson as “socialist” and “Bernie bro,” referencing Jackson ally Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont.
“Today, in a process concocted by the Maine Democratic Party establishment, a 24-year Augusta insider was appointed to run for the Senate by fewer than three-tenths of one percent of its primary voters,” Shawn Roderick, a Collins campaign spokesman, said in a statement. “Troy Jackson will attempt to sell Mainers a multi-trillion dollar bill of goods based on rhetoric that will make everything sound free, but in reality would be paid for by middle and lower income workers.”
Jackson said Republican attempts to fight his spot on the ballot based on the Democrats’ nominating process amounted to “bogus claims.”
Asked about reports that he previously treated state lawmakers, particularly women, with abrasiveness and a temper, Jackson said the GOP was going “to say whatever they can because they’re scared they’re gonna lose this race.”
“I’ve fought with people on both sides,” he said. “I wear my heart on my sleeve, I have cried on the Senate floor. Anyone that I may have argued with who I may have went too far or gotten too passionate, I apologize. But … yeah, I am passionate.”
Asked if he has enough money to compete with Collins, he said with a laugh, “Not now, but I hope we get it.”
Jackson raised $1 million in his rapidly developing Senate bid, and he said many of the donations were for $12 after he joked that Collins had $12 million, and he only had $12.
He shrugged off comments about him being a socialist or “Bernie bro.”
“I don’t know what I am, I don’t really care,” he said. “What I am is a guy from northern Maine. People can call me anything they want … and they have.”