5 things to know about Graham Platner ally poised to take on Susan Collins
Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson is on a glide path to replace now ex-candidate Graham Platner as the Democratic Senate nominee in the high-stakes showdown to face off with...
By Fox News · Fox News
Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson is on a glide path to replace now ex-candidate Graham Platner as the Democratic Senate nominee in the high-stakes showdown to face off with longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Delegates aligned with Jackson won the vast majority of the 500 slots that were up for grabs on Saturday and Sunday as Maine's 16 counties held two days of delegate selection for next weekend's state Democratic Party nominating convention. And Jackson's top rivals for the nomination backed him after dropping out of the race on Sunday. While the delegates on Jackson's slate are not required to support him at next weekend's convention in Bangor, Maine, he is now considered all but certain to secure the nomination and face off in the midterm elections against Collins in what's expected to be a combative and expensive ballot box battle. It will be among a dozen races nationwide that will determine if the Democrats can win back the Senate majority. The GOP currently holds the chamber 53-47. FORMER PLATNER ALLY TROY JACKSON CRUISES TOWARDS REPLACING EX-CANDIDATE AS DEMOCRATS' SENATE NOMINEE Here are five things to know about the 58-year-old Jackson, a fifth-generation logger from Allagash, a sparsely populated town at the northern tip of Maine along the Canadian border. Jackson first started in politics nearly three decades ago, protesting the entry of Canadian loggers who were entering the U.S. and being hired over Maine loggers. Jackson took part in blocking Canadian loggers from physically crossing the border into the U.S. He ran for office in 2000 as a Republican, but was first elected to the Maine House of Representatives two years later as an independent. Jackson joined the Democratic Party in 2004. He was elected to the state Senate in 2008, and a decade later, when the Democrats won the majority, he became the chamber's president. Jackson now strongly supports abortion rights and same-sex marriage. But as late as 2010, he received a perfect sco…