Maine’s newest Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate has fewer than 100 days to prove to voters that he is the right man for the job – and based on what we know, there’s a possibility he pulls it off.

Former state Sen. Troy Jackson was selected at a last-minute Democratic Party convention July 25. Jackson is replacing the disgraced Graham Platner, who dropped out of the race after being accused of rape.

Jackson, a fifth-generation logger from the northern part of the state, is as progressive as Platner, has political experience as the state’s former Senate president and has zeroed in on defeating Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November. In learning more about Jackson, I was surprised Maine Democrats didn’t urge him to run from the beginning.

Troy Jackson has baggage. He's still better for Maine.

Not only is Jackson a true working-class man, but he’s also a bona fide progressive. A member of the 2016 presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, Jackson is calling for Medicare for all, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and ending the war in Gaza.

Jackson........

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