Please note: This piece contains discussion of alleged sexual violence.
The Democratic Party’s failures in the 2024 presidential election ring a warning bell, yet its shadow continues to haunt the party in Maine. After Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race last election cycle, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris failed to articulate a clear set of policy goals to address voters’ concerns. Moreover, even the progressive RootsAction organization, among others, criticized the party for bypassing the traditional primary for an “intra-administration succession,” which undermined Harris’s legitimacy and campaign readiness.
Troy Jackson, the Maine Democratic Senate nominee, fits a similar profile and situation. After reeling from a chaos-filled nomination season where the prior nominee Graham Platner dropped out due to allegations of sexual assault, the Democratic Party selected Jackson to replace Platner with a “special nominating convention” involving party delegates.
Considering the race’s gravity as Democrats hope to take back the Senate and unseat five-term Sen. Susan Collins, Troy Jackson’s ascent to the party nomination without a truly competitive primary process is alarming. By repeating their blunders from 2024, Democrats have paved the way for a fifth term for Collins, and even if Jackson wins, his flaws as a candidate raise questions about his ability to govern effectively for Maine.
Most importantly, the delegate selection process has harmed Troy Jackson’s legitimacy as a candidate. Kathie Purdy, chair of the York County Democratic Party in Maine, admitted to The Atlantic that voters had expressed discontent toward the state’s delegation nomination process. One voter texted Purdy asking whom Democratic leadership “had picked” for the nomination, insinuating that the process was undemocratic and untransparent. Moreover, because the number of party members who applied to be delegates exceeded the allotted amount, the state party leaders had to turn the majority away.
While party leaders contend that, contrary to 2024, the open nomination process fielded many candidates, the delegation did not live up to this aspiration. Ultimately, each candidate’s campaign compiled lists of delegates allied with their candidate and passed them out to delegate selection committees ahead of the convention. As a result, committee members simply voted for applicants they believed would vote for their preferred candidate based on these lists. By treating delegate selection as a proxy election, Democrats took power out of the hands of party members and put it back into the political establishment, much like Harris’s coronation as the presidential nominee in 2024. Instead of allowing for this political maneuvering, Democrats in Maine should have explicitly barred campaigns from investigating and revealing prospective delegates’ candidate preferences.
Furthermore, due to Maine state law, the convention did not permit independents to participate in the selection process. This restriction shut out a sizable portion of the Maine electorate, as independents comprise almost one-third of Maine voters and were eligible to vote in the original primary under Maine state election laws. This constraint not only sent a message to independent voters that their vote didn’t matter, but it also prevented the Democrats from selecting a candidate with potentially greater appeal to non-party voters.
The Maine Democratic Party’s response to concerns about the nomination process was dismissive. Joseph Zamboni, a Cumberland County Democratic Committee member, responded in a Facebook post that “people rarely make perfectly informed or ‘optimal’ decisions because none of us has unlimited time, information, or mental capacity” and asked people to “stop the snark.” Not only is characterizing the primary process as imperfect a gross understatement, but attacking voters for raising legitimate concerns is not a helpful strategy when you are trying to win over an electorate in a competitive state.
What’s more, the emergency nomination process was altogether avoidable. Democrats could have foreseen Platner’s faults and called on him to drop out earlier, which would have paved the way for a more extensive competitive primary. Prior to the major allegation of sexual assault that derailed Platner’s campaign, multiple women familiar with Platner recalled repeated instances of abusive and emotionally volatile behavior in toxic relationships even before the June 9 primary. This conduct alone should have given the party pause, not to mention Platner’s dismissive comments about allegations of sexual assault and a Nazi tattoo symbol that Platner openly admitted to be his “Totenkopf.”
The Democratic response to the allegations reveals troubling questions about ethical transgressions they will tolerate in their candidates. Indeed, multiple major political figures held back from calling on Platner to drop out, despite red flags about Platner’s conduct even prior to the allegations. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a progressive who caucuses with the Senate Democrats, acknowledged Platner’s flaws but nevertheless expressed his full support “to make sure that Graham Platner is the next senator from the state of Maine.” Bhaskar Sunkara, president of the left-wing magazine The Nation and adviser to multiple progressive candidates, insisted that Platner’s brand of populism was worth the trouble if he could “win over … independent or conservative-leaning voters.”
On top of this grave oversight, the party’s nomination process gave little consideration to Jackson’s own history of inconsistent policy views. Jackson told The Washington Post that he supported deportations only a week after he asked protestors to “get rid of” anyone supporting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Additionally, Jackson reversed his long-held stance endorsing the Second Amendment in favor of strict gun control legislation. Yet, his reversal came only after his son’s lobbying firm Resurgam Group won a contract with the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, according to a 2024 state ethics disclosure. This incident raises serious questions about whether Jackson has the capacity to assert his independence as a politician. In this way, it is unsurprising that Jackson has also raised tens of thousands of dollars of PAC money from special interest groups in harmful industries like tobacco and gambling over the course of his political career.
Maine voters deserve to know what their candidate stands for, instead of getting a confusing mish-mash of policy views that appear to match a politician’s personal interests. If anything, Jackson’s promise to take on the political establishment and PAC money should only hold him to a higher standard — one he is clearly failing to meet.
More problematically, if Jackson loses, Susan Collins would get yet another term in the Senate. Unfortunately, Collins’ policy record as a career politician and poor ethics have damaged Maine. When Collins first ran for the Senate in 1996, she pledged to support term limits and only stay in office for two terms. Now, she has completely backtracked on her promise, stating in her recent Senate debate that she now opposes term limits. Her betrayal of Maine does not end there, as she voted for a procedural motion that allowed Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill to advance to a final vote. While Collins ultimately voted against the bill, it seemed more like an attempt to save face after realizing how much the federal cuts in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicare benefits would harm Maine’s residents in need. Beyond her policy choices, Collins has also set a bad precedent for transparency in government and eroded the trust of Maine voters by failing to report up to $395,000 in stock trades on time.
The Maine Democratic Party and wider Democratic establishment can thank itself for placing Maine voters into the same dilemma as in 2024: the choice between a deeply flawed and illegitimately nominated candidate with incoherent policy visions versus the worse of two evils. This decision will not only harm the party’s ability to gain a Senate seat in such a crucial race, but also does a disservice to the voters of Maine. Despite the 2024 election’s clear warnings, party operatives still refuse to learn and listen to the voices of constituents by giving them the fair primary process and cohesive policy vision they deserve. Until that changes, the cycle of 2024 remains doomed to repeat, and the Democrats can only blame themselves when Maine faces the dire consequences of a Susan Collins victory.
Below you will find a list of helpful support resources for the Harvard community relating to sexual violence:
- Harvard College Title IX: Harvard undergraduates may email collegetitleix@fas.harvard.edu or call 617-496-3336 to set up an appointment with the Harvard College Title IX Resource Coordinator.
- Harvard University Police Department: call 617-495-1215.
- Boston Area Rape Crisis Center: 24-hour hotline: 800-841-8371.
- National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline (Confidential and open to all): 800-656-4673.
