The Family Business Goes Federal: Troy Jackson Wins Maine Senate Race, Giving Lobbyist Son New Opportunity

The Democrat railed against corporate influence after introducing bills in the Maine Senate that helped his son's corporate lobbying firm

Maine Democrat Troy Jackson defeated Republican incumbent senator Susan Collins after campaigning as a crusader against corporate interests and "high-priced lobbyists." His victory could create opportunities for his son, who worked as a high-priced corporate lobbyist as Jackson led the Maine Senate.

Jackson led Collins by a 5-point margin when the race was called at 12:25 a.m.

Jackson campaigned on a far-left platform of Medicare for All, abolishing ICE, taxing billionaires and corporations, and putting an end to what he described as "the genocide in Gaza" by halting U.S. arms sales to Israel. While Jackson also argued in favor of overturning the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision and told Mainers there were no billionaires funding his campaign, his campaign finance report revealed that there were, in fact, billionaires funding his campaign.

Jackson, the former president of the Maine Senate, entered the race under unusual circumstances. He was tapped as the Democratic nominee in July after Graham Platner, the Nazi-tattooed "oyster farmer," withdrew from the race following a credible rape allegation.

Like Platner, Jackson ran against a "system" that he argued was rigged against "working Mainers." But while Platner was a political novice, Jackson spent two decades in the state legislature in Maine, including six years as president of the Maine Senate. There, Jackson and his family became well acquainted with Maine's political "system": In 2022, Jackson's son Chace joined a lobbying firm founded by Jackson's former chief of staff and represented an array of corporate clients. Jackson introduced a number of bills benefiting those clients, including one that would have allowed a "predatory" lending company to sidestep Maine's interest rate caps.

Jackson also followed Platner in emphasizing his purported working-class background. Platner presented himself as a blue-collar "oysterman" but attended an elite Connecticut boarding school that costs upwards of $75,000 a year and purchased his home thanks to a $200,000 loan from his father. Jackson, for his part, described himself as a "logger by trade" and for years claimed to own a "Logging and Forestry" business, though he actually used the company to accept tens of thousands of dollars in consulting fees from a Maryland-based union, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

Platner's demise ultimately stemmed from personal scandals, and Jackson's closet proved cleaner than his predecessor's. Jackson was scrutinized early in his brief campaign for his poor treatment of female colleagues and staffers in the Maine legislature, but the accusations never turned sexual in nature as they did with Platner, paving the way for Jackson to defeat Collins. The result marks the end of Collins's three-decade Senate career.

Jackson's son stopped lobbying when Jackson left the State Senate, though he could return to the profession with dad in Washington.