Abortion rights group endorses Democrat Troy Jackson in critical Maine Senate race

One of the oldest abortion rights groups in the US is endorsing Troy Jackson, the Democratic nominee in Maine’s critical US Senate race, according to details first shared with the Guardian.

Reproductive Freedom for All is supporting Jackson, the former state senate president, in challenging Susan Collins – the five‑term Republican incumbent who has been dogged on the campaign trail for her role in overturning abortion access in the US.

Collins voted in 2018 to confirm conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh to the supreme court. In 2022, Kavanaugh joined the majority opinion overturning Roe v Wade, a landmark abortion rights protection. In the aftermath, more than a dozen states enacted near‑total abortion bans. This year’s midterm elections mark the first time Collins is on the ballot since the decision.

“Flipping the Maine Senate race is a critical path to winning a Senate majority, and we do not restore a federal right to abortion without flipping the Senate majority,” said Mini Timmaraju, the group’s president.

Timmaraju will join Jackson on Wednesday in Brunswick for the launch of the campaign’s Women for Troy coalition.

Jackson, a former logger who began his political career as a Republican, once cast votes restricting abortion access before reversing course years later. He has expressed regret for his record and his earlier belief that abortion should “never be legal”.

In a July interview with MS Now, Jackson said he recognized he had been “wrong”.

“Early on, I wasn’t real clear on reproductive rights. But I had a lot of conversations over time. A lot of conversations with women, doctors, community members, just people that I came to trust,” he said. “And it became more and more clear to me that abortion access was healthcare.”

Since 2017, Jackson has held a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood and has become one of Maine’s most consistently pro‑choice Democrats. In 2023, the year after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, he co‑sponsored legislation expanding abortion access to include medically necessary procedures after fetal viability.

His evolution has extended beyond reproductive rights: Jackson has also shifted his positions on marriage equality and other social and economic issues, emerging as one of the Pine Tree State’s leading progressives during his time in the legislature.

“[Jackson] in many ways reflects the reality of a majority of independents and Republicans in this country who now support abortion rights, but might personally have felt conflicted in the past,” Timmaraju told the Guardian. “Having someone like Troy in the Senate who can talk to his Republican colleagues and talk to some of those moderate Democratic colleagues who don’t have the same courage that he has is actually going to be a huge value add for our movement.”

In June, Collins – who has long cast herself as a moderate Republican supportive of abortion access – said she did “not regret that vote” for Kavanaugh. Jackson’s campaign has seized on the remark to tie her to the Trump administration’s anti‑abortion agenda. “She can defend that vote all she wants. I’m running for Senate to restore and expand the federal right to abortion and make damn sure politicians never again get to take this freedom away from Mainers,” Jackson said in a statement.

Planned Parenthood’s Super Pac announced this month it would spend more than $600,000 on ads criticizing Collins’s record on abortion in Maine.

But strategists in both parties note that Collins’s seniority in Congress – and the millions of federal dollars she has steered back to Maine over the years – has historically proven difficult to beat. In a midterm shaped by record inflation, affordability concerns, and the military conflict with Iran, they argue her vote to confirm Kavanaugh may not be top of mind for many Mainers weighing their choices at the ballot box.

Jackson – who mounted an unsuccessful bid for governor earlier this year – secured the Democratic nomination in July at a snap convention. He replaced Graham Platner, the oyster farmer who exited the race after facing allegations of sexual assault, which he denies.

The turmoil around the race “gave us pause”, Timmaraju said, explaining the group’s decision to wait before endorsing Jackson. “We needed a little bit of time to regroup. We needed to follow the lead of people on the ground in Maine.”