Democrat · Maine Senate · 2026

Troy Jackson

Jackson comes from five generations of loggers in Allagash, near the Canadian border.

Troy Jackson has recalled his son gripping his hand on Sunday nights before he left for logging jobs hours from home.¹ A fifth generation logger from Allagash, he grew up with a father who worked in the woods and a mother who was sixteen when he was born.¹² He and his partner, Lana, have two grown sons.²

Labor disputes helped draw him into politics, including logging protests at the Canadian border in 1998.¹ He first ran as a Republican in 2000 and lost, won as an independent in 2002 and became a Democrat in 2004.¹ He spent twenty years in Maine's legislature, including six as Senate president, and earned an associate degree at the University of Maine at Fort Kent.²

His record includes sponsoring the 2019 law creating Maine's Prescription Drug Affordability Board to address public purchasers' drug spending.³ He also sponsored legislation authorizing a wholesale medicine importation program subject to federal approval.⁴

Jackson's Senate platform calls for Medicare for All, stronger union organizing rights, expanded tax credits for working families and a congressional stock trading ban.⁵ He also supports abolishing ICE and ending U.S. military funding for Israel.⁵ Democrats selected him at a July convention after their original nominee withdrew; he now faces Republican Susan Collins in a race both parties regard as important to Senate control.⁶

Record and controversies

Residency complaint and limits of the ethics ruling

In October 2023, Maine's ethics commission unanimously declined to investigate a complaint challenging Jackson's claimed Allagash residency after he bought a home in Augusta.⁷ Commissioners said the complainant had not demonstrated a campaign finance violation and that temporary residence near the State House could coexist with legal residency in a distant district.⁷ Jackson called the complaint partisan and pointed to his home, taxes and family ties in Allagash.⁸ The commission did not decide the separate travel reimbursement or mortgage information allegations, which staff said fell outside its jurisdiction.⁸

Water bottle incident and false claim that it struck a colleague

Jackson threw a water bottle during a 2021 legislative argument and later acknowledged that he should not have done so.⁹ PolitiFact rated a 2026 Republican advertisement's claim that he hit a female colleague false: the cited social media allegation had been withdrawn, and reported witnesses said the bottle did not strike her.⁹ His campaign said he had apologized directly at the time and disputed that the bottle was aimed at anyone.⁹

College funding bill and a relative's lobbying work

A Republican advertisement connected Jackson's support for additional Maine Maritime Academy funding with his son's legislative work for the school.¹⁰ PolitiFact found that the $13.4 million bill had bipartisan support but never became law, and that a nearly $200,000 lobbying figure represented a firm's receipts rather than demonstrated personal pay to his son.¹⁰ The campaign pointed to Jackson's support for the public college before his son's employment; PolitiFact could not establish that the son's role influenced the legislation.¹⁰