How Republicans plan to conquer Troy Jackson

BANGOR, Maine — Republicans had months to research and rebuke Graham Platner. They now have exactly 100 days to sink his replacement.

Troy Jackson is like Platner but worse. He’s a socialist who’s flip-flopped on policy, a career politician who keeps losing, an insider who is also unknown. His nomination was illegitimate, he has anger issues, and he lacks “rizz.”

That’s just a sampling of the messaging the GOP plans to use to trounce Jackson, the former Maine Senate president who lost this year’s Democratic gubernatorial primary only to glide this weekend into the party’s nomination to challenge Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in November.

“Mainers already rejected Troy Jackson once this year after his failed campaign for governor. Now Democrats are asking voters to believe the politician they didn’t want leading Augusta belongs in the United States Senate,” the NRSC, Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, wrote in a “messaging guidance” document about Jackson, viewed by Playbook. “Jackson is a radical, ill-tempered career politician whose failed record and socialist agenda make him unfit to represent Maine.”

The stakes are high. Collins is the only Republican senator running for re-election this cycle in a state Kamala Harris won in 2024, and Democrats’ hopes of retaking the chamber track straight through Maine — a reality the NRSC admitted is possible in its new donor memo, shared first with Playbook, acknowledging that “Jackson is fully capable of winning this seat if we become complacent.”

Republicans’ first plan of attack is to link Jackson to Platner, with whom he campaigned and shares much of his populist platform. As soon as Jackson’s nomination became official yesterday, the Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate GOP’s super PAC, announced that it was launching asix-figure ad blitz that begins by depicting the two Democrats hugging on stage.

“Jackson is like Graham Platner but worse,” the ad says, citing reporting from WaPo, CNN and other outlets about Jackson’s alleged sharp temper and heated interactions with colleagues.

The NRSC yesterday posted a video on X depicting Platner literally transforming into Jackson — with the caption “No tattoo, same crazy,” a reference to Platner’s tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol. “Troy Jackson is all the baggage without the ‘rizz,” James Blair, who leads President Donald Trump’s outside political operation, said on X.

Jackson campaigned alongside Platner and stood by him through several scandals — until POLITICO reported earlier this month that a woman who dated Platner said he had sexually assaulted her, a claim Platner denies. In response, Jackson publicly disavowed Platner and said he had “lied to me.”

Jackson told reporters yesterday he has not spoken to Platner since then. Asked to respond to SLF’s ad, Jackson said “anyone that I may have argued with, that I might have went too far or got too passionate, I apologize to.”

The GOP’s second push is to brand Jackson as a “political insider” — a bid to undermine his populist bonafides at a time when voters from neither party trust establishment politicians. “We must act immediately to define him before national Democrats frame him as a populist outsider,” the NRSC memo said.

“Chuck Schumer forcefully removed Graham Platner from the ballot against the will of Maine voters, only to replace him with a deranged and scandal-plagued political insider,” SLF Communications Director Chris Gustafson said in a statement to POLITICO.

Part of that strategy is to not only label Jackson as a longserving member of the establishment (Collins, for what it’s worth, has held her seat for nearly three decades), but as a political insider who has failed when seeking higher office. As state Senate president, Jackson was the second-highest ranking official in Maine — but he ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for Congress in 2014 and for governor earlier this year, a fresh wound Republicans are eager to pick at.

Compounding that insider image is the way Maine Democrats selected Jackson: While more than 200,000 Mainers voted for Platner in the primary, just 566 Democratic delegates actively chose Jackson at yesterday’s nominating convention — a fact Republicans hope to spin into a narrative that Jackson was coronated by party insiders. “Not one single vote was cast for Troy Jackson” in the Senate race, RNC Chair Joe Gruters said on X.

“Just one month ago, Troy came in third in the Democratic primary for Governor. Now he will run for Senate as the third choice of his party insiders,” Collins campaign spokesperson Shawn Roderick said in a statement to Playbook. He added, “in a process concocted by the Maine Democratic Party establishment, a 24-year Augusta insider was appointed to run for the Senate by fewer than three-tenths of one percent of its primary voters.”

Jackson, for his part, appears committed to maintaining his image as a populist who, as has become his campaign motto, comes neither from the left nor the right, but “from the bottom.” He’s more eager to bring up being a fifth-generation logger than his decades of experience in state politics — and at any mention of his relationship to Platner, he’s quick to pivot to his role as part of a broader pro-worker movement. And his campaign is staying laser-focused on attacking Collins.

“Only Susan Collins could spend nearly 30 years in Washington voting with Donald Trump 96 percent of the time and taking millions from corporate special interests, then call a fifth-generation logger from Allagash a ‘party insider,’” Jackson campaign adviser BJ McCollister said in a statement to Playbook. “Mainers know who Troy Jackson is—and they know exactly who Susan Collins works for.”

Asked yesterday to respond to the GOP messaging shortly after clinching the official nomination, Jackson told reporters that he attributes Republicans’ attacks to “Senator Collins trying to make sure that she can win re-election on a really bad record.”

“I've been in the legislature for 20 years,” he added. “I do believe I've been vetted. I've been tested. People know exactly what I'm fighting for. They know that I've had their back, and they know they can trust me.”

Andrew Howard contributed to this report.