Former Maine State Senate President Troy Jackson is poised to replace Graham Platner as Democrats’ nominee for Senate in Maine, setting up a contest with Republican incumbent Susan Collins in November. 

Platner suddenly dropped out of the Maine Senate race July 8, setting off a fast-tracked nominating contest to replace him. 

Platner, an oyster farmer and military veteran who ran a progressive populist campaign, ended his campaign after Politico reported on an allegation of sexual assault and his allies urged him to drop out. He drew national attention and also controversy since launching his campaign in August. He’s faced scrutiny over a tattoo of Nazi imagery he has since had covered up, a past history of offensive Reddit posts, which he apologized for, and allegations of mistreating women. 

Platner categorically denied the assault allegation. 

Democrats including Jackson, former Maine CDC Director Nirav Shah and Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, all of whom had run in the Democratic primary for governor, entered the race, along with Jordan Wood, who ran in the Democratic primary for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, and Dan Kleban, founder of Maine Beer Company. 

Jackson, who had strong support from organized labor and campaigned on many of the same progressive policies as Platner, earned a majority of support from delegates who gathered at county-level caucuses over the weekend of July 18. All of his main opponents dropped out of the race and got behind them, meaning the scheduled July 25 state convention to pick a new nominee will be all but a formality.  

Collins, a Maine institution, has represented the state in the Senate since 1997 and is the only Republican senator in a state that reliably votes for Democrats at the presidential level. She’s broken with her party and President Donald Trump on key issues — in Trump’s second term, she voted against confirming some of his top/high-profile nominees and voted against passing his sprawling tax cut and spending package that included deep cuts to social programs used by the poorest Americans. 

Platner won the June 9 primary easily after his path to his party’s nomination was cleared April 30 when Gov. Janet Mills suspended her campaign.

Even as Maine has trended increasingly Democratic, unseating Collins at the ballot box has historically been a tall order that many Democrats have attempted and failed. In 2020, Democratic nominee Sara Gideon raised a staggering $74 million and spent $62 million to lose to Collins by over eight points. 

Republicans currently control the Senate by a 53-47 majority, and senators serve six-year terms, meaning a third of the Senate is up every election cycle. For Democrats to win back the chamber in 2026, they’d need to hold on to every seat they have, including competitive ones in Georgia and Michigan. They also would have to flip four GOP-held seats — targets include Maine, North Carolina and even more Republican-leaning states such as Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas.