Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Troy Jackson was paid $138,000 from a pair of unions throughout his previous gubernatorial run over the last two years.
The former Maine Senate president and longtime labor organizer from Allagash challenging five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins, said his main income since early 2025 came from consulting work in a Senate financial disclosure made public this week.
Jackson earned $90,000 from the International Association of Machinists and $48,000 from the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades over most of 2025 through this summer while he was running for governor.
The payments show how closely Jackson’s livelihood has been tied to the labor movement that powers his politics. The same unions that paid him also helped bankroll an outside group backing his bid for governor. Their checks were a major source of income while he ran a demanding statewide campaign that bled into his Senate run.
Jackson’s campaign has offered few details about what the work entailed, describing it only as consulting and organizing services on national and labor issues. The disclosure lists his role with both unions as “general consultant.” Neither union responded to requests for comment.
Both jobs began in March 2025, two months before he entered the governor’s race. The machinists’ job lasted until August, after he’d filed paperwork in July to explore replacing Graham Platner and later secured the Democratic nomination. His past work for the union, which represents Bath Iron Works employees, made headlines after he sent a 2019 letter to the shipyard criticizing hiring practices while being paid as an organizer.
The IUPAT paid Jackson through June 2026, when he placed third in the gubernatorial primary behind nominee Hannah Pingree and runner-up Nirav Shah. Jackson’s payments from IAM were split $50,000 in 2025 and $40,000 in 2026, and $30,000 in 2025 and $18,000 this year from IUPAT. In total, Jackson made nearly $148,000 over 2025 and 2026 and 2025 in “self-employment income.
Painters District Council 35, IUPAT and the Machinists also helped fund the Working Mainers First PAC, an outside group that spent more than $900,000 on advertising to get him elected to the Blaine House. Jackson’s campaign said he did not speak with anyone at the unions about the group’s messaging, plans or funding, which would be illegal under state law.
“Troy’s financial disclosure reflects a lifetime of working for a paycheck,” the Jackson campaign said in a statement that did not answer questions about the nature of his work. “He’s a logger and union member who understands what it means to worry about making ends meet — and he would bring that experience to a Senate dominated by millionaires.”
Filed Monday after Jackson was granted a nearly two-month extension, the disclosure marked the first look at Jackson’s finances. It came as the pivotal battleground race intensified with ads and debates. Both candidates are clashing over claims of financial impropriety and corruption.
The Collins campaign knocked Jackson for taking “the latest extension possible” to file the disclosure. They argued his income from “three unions and a dark money group” was at odds with Jackson’s pledges of transparency.
The Jackson campaign fired back regarding a $4,800 payment in 2025 from Brewer nonprofit Food and Medicine, telling Newsweek, “Only Susan Collins would call a nonprofit delivering food assistance a dark money group while she sits at the center of a pay-for-play scandal.”
Jackson’s team continues to press Collins on a defense contractor who made illegal donations during her 2020 bid and claimed he engaged in a bribery scheme involving the senator and other lawmakers. The Democrat has emphasized that Collins’ husband, former lobbyist Thomas Daffron, was paid as a consultant last year by Chesapeake Enterprises, a firm led by longtime Republican operative and pro-Collins PAC leader Scott Reed.
Collins has vehemently denied any wrongdoing, calling former Navatek CEO Martin Kao a “crook” and liar who spun a tale to the FBI and ProPublica. ProPublica has defended its reporting and says an FBI inquiry only shut down amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on the agency last year. Collins’ team says the FBI hasn’t talked with the senator or staff on the matter since 2021.
On top of the union payments, Jackson received $4,800 in 2025 as an organizer for Food and Medicine, and $5,100 that year from the Eastern Maine Labor Council. He worked as an organizer for both organizations from September 2021 through February of 2025. A logger for at least 15 years, Jackson has worked as a logger only intermittently after he became a state lawmaker in 2002.
Jackson’s financial disclosure highlighted a stark contrast between the candidates in terms of net worth. Jackson’s and his partner’s assets total between $147,000 and $430,000. His partner has between $100,001 and $250,000 in state retirement benefits, while Jackson’s pension plan is valued between $15,001 and $50,000.
Collins’ assets when combined with her husband’s, former lobbyist Thomas Daffron, were between $4 million and $10 million, largely in mutual funds and stock holdings, in her latest annual financial report.
The senator in 2012 co-wrote the STOCK Act, meant to prevent insider trading and bolster transparency. The STOCK Act has come under scrutiny by both parties and watchdogs for not leading to stronger enforcement.
She has resisted pushes for a congressional stock trading ban, although she voted for a Republican bill that paired one with voter ID requirements. Collins has said members of Congress should not be allowed to buy or sell individual stocks unless the portfolio is managed by an outside advisor without consultation with the lawmaker. Jackson says he’d support a ban.