Troy Jackson, a 58-year-old fifth-generation logger who led the Maine Senate for six years, has unseated Republican Susan Collins. The Associated Press called the race for the Democrat at 1:02 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday, PBS NewsHour reported. Collins had already conceded.
The result ends a Senate career that began when Collins was first elected in 1996. “The people of Maine have elected that logger to the United States Senate,” Jackson told supporters, per NPR. The seat was one of the flips that gave Democrats the Senate, as our full midterm results show.
A first-round majority, so no ranked-choice count
Maine uses ranked-choice voting for federal races. This race qualified despite having two names on the ballot, because six official write-in candidates had declared, PBS News explained. A tabulation in Augusta happens only when no one wins a majority of first choices.
Jackson cleared that bar. The AP’s results page, updated at 6:35 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday with about 91% of votes counted, gave him 368,429 first-choice votes, or 53.4%. Collins had 320,926, or 46.5%, a gap of 47,503 votes.
Earlier AP figures reported by FairVote showed the same majority.
“Because Jackson has a majority of first choices, the race will not go to an RCV count,” FairVote wrote.
Collins did not speak to supporters at her Bangor party. Her campaign issued a statement after she called Jackson, WGME reported. “It has been the honor of my life to serve the people of Maine in the United States Senate,” she said. She was proud of her work “in the past 30 years,” she added, and promised “a smooth transition.”
From the Allagash woods to the Senate president’s chair
Jackson grew up in Aroostook County, one of Maine’s poorest areas, and started work as a lumberjack at 19. That account comes from the AP, in a story carried by Boston.com.
He entered politics in the late 1990s by leading a weeklong loggers’ blockade at the Quebec border. The protest was over Canadian workers who, the loggers said, were driving down pay. Police escorted Jackson away.
He then spent about 20 years in the Maine House and Senate. The Maine Legislature’s list of Senate presidents shows him in the chair from 2019 to 2024, as a Democrat from Allagash. He was once a Republican, the AP noted in its pre-election guide.
The logger label is his own, and he leads with it. His campaign site opens with “Mainer by birth. Logger by trade.”
Third for governor in June, Senate nominee by July
Jackson was not his party’s first pick for this seat. He ran for governor and finished third in the June Democratic primary, Maine Public’s Kevin Miller reported. The Senate nomination went to Graham Platner, an oyster farmer who drew big crowds and a string of controversies.
Platner quit in July after a former partner accused him of rape in a Politico story. He denied it. On July 25, nearly 600 delegates met in Bangor and chose Jackson over businesswoman Saundra Pelletier, 566 votes to 5, Maine Public reported. His better-known rivals had already dropped out.
“Maine does not need another six years of concern,” Jackson told the convention, UPI reported. Her concern, he said, “does not lower the costs of groceries or gas.” He had a little over 100 days to make that case, the AP noted.
Medicare for All, Kavanaugh and a debate that turned sharp
Jackson ran as a working-class progressive. His campaign site puts “Pass Medicare for All and lower the cost of prescription drugs” first. Next comes “Tax the billionaires and greedy corporations.” It also backs a federal right to abortion, ending US military aid to Israel and abolishing ICE.
On the trail he hit Collins over President Trump, CBS News reported, and above all over her vote for Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He also faulted her for moving Trump’s tax and budget bill out of committee and then voting against it, per the AP. Collins questioned his record as a legislator, according to CBS. She also criticised him for telling her to “shut up” in a debate.
Miller told NPR the result was in large part “a rejection of the Trump administration and Republicans more generally.” He pointed to Trump’s tariffs on Canada, Maine’s largest trading partner. Gas and heating oil prices driven up by the Iran war hurt Collins too, he said.
Here is how the two careers compare, with each figure’s source.
- Collins, first race (1996): won with 49% (AP).
- Collins in the Senate: seat held since 1997, over five terms (NPR, CBS News).
- Collins’s re-elections: no Democrat topped 44% in her five earlier races, and she took 51% in 2020 (AP).
- Collins’s record: chaired Appropriations, and voted to convict Trump in 2021 (NPR, AP).
- Jackson before Tuesday: about 20 years in the Legislature, and Senate president from 2019 to 2024 (Maine Public, Maine Legislature).
- Jackson’s nomination: 566 of 571 convention votes, a month after placing third for governor (Maine Public).
- Tuesday’s result: Jackson 53.4%, Collins 46.5% in first choices, about 91% counted, as of 6:35 p.m. ET Wednesday (AP).
Sworn in on January 3, with a Democratic majority
“I am going to remember who sent me there,” Jackson said in his victory speech in Portland, Maine Morning Star’s Emma Davis reported. He told supporters that “the real work begins,” per WGME.
He takes his seat when the new Congress convenes on January 3, 2027. Our explainer on what changes under a Democratic Congress lays out that calendar. Collins was New England’s only Republican in Congress, the AP noted. Once Jackson is sworn in, none of the region’s 12 senators will be a Republican.