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The Logger Who Could Unseat Susan Collins

How Troy Jackson rose from wildcat striker to Democratic Senate nominee.

Troy Jackson, Democratic US Senate candidate for Maine, speaks during the Maine Democratic Party special state convention in Bangor, Maine, on July 25, 2026.

Bangor, Maine—As delegates to the Maine Democratic Party’s special Senate nominating convention on Saturday morning filed into a convention center in the former “lumber capital of the world,” a box truck sponsored by Teamsters Local 340 pulled up to the curb. It was flying “Troy Jackson for Senate” flags from the hood, and the trucker inside pumped his fist to egg on the attendees. Inside, a handful of union officials compared notes on fifth-generation logger and former state Senate president Troy Jackson’s improbable ascent from second runner-up in the primary for governor to emergency Senate nominee. Jake Teitelbaum—secretary of the Maine Service Employees Association, a union that represents state employees—explained it to me: “Maybe some of the other candidates could mobilize money quickly, but Troy had the connection to labor. And we mobilize people.”

Jackson’s political career began in the late 1990s when he joined 14 fellow loggers in a wildcat strike in northern Maine. Not surprisingly, during his two decades as a state legislator in Augusta, his support for organized labor was unwavering. Those enduring ties help explain why Jackson was able to outmaneuver his rivals to secure enough delegates to turn Saturday’s convention into a coronation ceremony.

As the assembled delegates waited to sit down in the hall where his nomination would be made official, some gathered around a TV playing clips of Susan Collins expressing concern at any number of Trump administration outrages, then picked up signs reading “Retire Susan” on one side and “No more concerns” on the other. Everyone who wasn’t already wearing swag from SEIU or the UAW found themselves pulling on a blue or yellow Troy Jackson shirt as a show of party unity.

One exception was B.J. McCollister, one of the Jackson campaign’s lead strategists, who stood near the TV in a blue suit looking bleary-eyed. McCollister said he’d barely slept in days, not that he minded. “I’ve worked in Maine politics for 15 years,” he said, “and I’ve never seen anything like the energy over the past week.” McCollister told me that more than 1,000 volunteers had leapt into action as soon as Graham Platner dropped out of the Senate race, making it possible for Jackson’s hastily thrown-together campaign to contact tens of thousands of Mainers ahead of the county meetings where his victory was secured. When I asked what it would take to keep that level of energy going through the general election, McCollister cited the support of organized labor: “Troy has always stood up for them and now they’re standing up for him.”

McCollister excused himself as the delegates began to head into the convention hall to find their seats. In the rush, I found Cynthia Phinney, the president of Maine AFL-CIO. “We’ve had so many successes in the legislature that Troy was key to,” Phinney enthused, ticking a few on one hand: raising the prevailing wage for workers on publicly funded construction projects, ensuring that apprenticeship programs are recruiting women and minorities, and combating wage theft. Phinney was especially complimentary of Jackson’s willingness to wrestle with Governor Janet Mills over mandating union labor on major projects, a years-long fight that culminated in 2023 when Mills vetoed project labor agreements for the offshore wind industry. “Labor standards are one of the things that a lot of people are first to cave on when it comes time to........

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