PRESS RELEASE
Jackson Gains Traction Through His Working-Class Roots, Humility, and Relentless Fight for Mainers
MAINE, USA — Fifth-generation logger, former Maine Senate President, and Democratic Nominee for U.S. Senate Troy Jackson is gaining traction for his life story – a logger from the northern woods of Maine who got his political start fighting for workers rights.
Troy brought a true working-class voice to the Maine Legislator. He rose through the ranks to become Maine Senate President, where he used his position to defend reproductive rights, lower prescription drug costs, protect social security, and bring free school meals to every kid across the state.
While Susan Collins uses her Appropriations role to do Trump’s bidding and voted with Trump 96% of the time, Troy used his position to improve the lives of Mainers — and that’s exactly what he’ll continue to do in the U.S. Senate.
Jackson’s campaign has focused on his ties to Aroostook County, a sprawling, wooded region known as “The County” to Mainers. It’s where Jackson, 58, says he watched hard-working people struggle to get ahead, fueling his fight against billionaires and corporations. It also is the place that has elected Jackson to the Legislature while supporting Republican Donald Trump for president.
“Everyone in [logging] works hard for our families. We did follow the rules. But the harder we worked, the more that companies took from us,” Jackson said during his nomination acceptance speech at a party convention in Bangor. “And further behind we would fall.”
Jackson has repeatedly argued that he will be a strong Senate candidate because he has kept his legislative seat as a Democrat while the region steadily became more Republican, including when Aroostook County swung for Trump.
But inside the union hall of the United Steelworkers Local 9, Jackson needed no introduction. Arriving for a cookout last Sunday, he seemingly knew everyone wearing the shirt or hat of their union as he shared hamburgers and inside jokes. That’s because while Platner earned the support of the labor movement, Jackson has lived it.
His ties with organized labor in Maine span decades, beginning when he was a pre-teen in the remote north woods of Allagash, watching his logger father participate in a strike. “That really was the beginning for me of understanding more about working class issues and how we get left behind,” Jackson told the Globe in Skowhegan.
After becoming a logger himself, he experienced firsthand what he believed were unfair actions by big conglomerates that wanted to use cheaper Canadian labor over Maine workers — and then ran for office out of outrage. Along the way, he joined five unions; he currently is a dues-paying member of three, the biggest national unions representing engineers, machinists, and painters.
“For him, it’s not a transactional relationship,” Francis Eanes, the executive director of the Maine Labor Climate Council, said at a Lewiston brewery where supporters sang karaoke to Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5.” “He’ll leave the campaign trail and come to our organizing events. He’ll be the first one on the picket line, even at 5 a.m., before the camera people show up.”
“Troy Jackson winning would prove our theory of the case that people want people in office who speak their language, who can actually make a positive change on the issues that matter to everyday working people,” Shuler said on the eve of Labor Day in Orono, where the University of Maine graduate workers union gathered for a contra dance event to benefit Jackson.
Jackson’s diagnosis of Democrats’ recent woes with the working class is simple: “Overall, we quit talking about economics,” he said. He acknowledged that some voters fled the party in favor of the GOP over perceptions that Democrats had gone too far on social issues. […] “But we kind of quit talking about everyday working class issues, and that’s where the problem is.”
“Troy was standing shoulder to shoulder with us well before the Senate or governor’s race,” said Amanda Gavin, a professor who was a leader of the drive to organize UMaine grad workers and faculty in 2022. “That’s what gives him street cred.”
“That is who Troy really is. He is the working class champion,” she said, “we needed all along.”
New York Times: Troy Jackson, a Progressive Brawler, Tries to Flip a Senate Seat in Maine
Mr. Jackson, whose working-class roots run much deeper, is now testing that premise as he challenges a five-term Republican incumbent, Susan Collins, in one of the most competitive and closely watched Senate races in the country.
“I may not be good at very many things,” Mr. Jackson recently told a crowd at a former union hall in Jay, Maine. “I am very good at pushing back.” He cuts a striking contrast with Ms. Collins, 73, a genteel centrist who has been skewered by critics over the years for expressing “concern” over tough issues. Mr. Jackson, 58, doesn’t mince words…
“He said, ‘I’ve got to tell it like it is,’” Mr. Baldacci recalled. “There’s an authenticity to him that’s really important.”
Mr. Jackson, a fifth-generation logger, has described the 1998 blockade at the Canadian border as his political awakening. [...] “Troy realized the only way to change things is to do it from within,” said Hilton Hafford, one of the loggers by his side.
He spearheaded groundbreaking legislation to provide child care subsidies, paid family and medical leave, and free school lunches.
Mr. Jackson’s Senate colleagues chose him to serve three consecutive terms as president because, Mr. Lawrence said, “When you’re in a political battle you want Troy on your side. He’s very good in the trenches.”
Mr. Jackson offers plain-spoken empathy for the struggles of the working class […] “I think he speaks from the heart and like a normal person,” said Linda Deane, a retired mill worker who lives in Livermore. “What good is it to be a great orator if you’re not going to stand up for the people that you’re representing?”
This is a campaign powered by organized labor. Mr. Jackson’s young campaign workers run around in T-shirts that say “SOLIDARITY.” It was labor activists who hastily threw together the infrastructure to propel Mr. Jackson to the nomination; he now touts endorsements from dozens of unions.
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