WASHINGTON — Talk about waving a red flag.
Maine Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson once joked that he could have run for office as a full-blown communist, while attempting to rationalize to voters why he started off as a Republican.
Jackson, the replacement for disgraced oyster farmer Graham Platner, explained to a room full of Cumberland County voters in 2017 that during his early days as an elected official, he was desperate to get into power.
“It’s no secret when I ran for the legislature in 2000, I was a Republican,” he said at the time. “And I had no idea. All I cared about was getting into the legislature because that seemed to be the place that I could fix some of the problems that were happening in my area.”
“I would’ve ran as anything, I would’ve ran as a communist,” he added to laughs. “I just wanted to get to a place to do something to help the people in my area.”
The former lumberjack kicked off his political career as a Republican with an unsuccessful run for the Maine state House in 2000, when he lost to Democrat Marc Michaud in a close race.
Two years later, he tried again, this time as an Independent, and successfully beat Michaud. He officially became a Democrat about two years later and went on to lead Maine’s state Senate from 2018 through 2024.
“Everyone in my community at the time told me that, ‘You’re crazy, you’re running as a Republican when you’re a Democrat.’ I didn’t know,” he said. “What I felt very much in my heart was that government was standing in the way of prosperity.”
During his early political career, Jackson held very conservative beliefs on abortion, gay marriage, immigration, and more. Ironically, now he is running on a platform pushing for a massive expansion of government.
In 2016, Jackson served as the political director for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) presidential campaign in Maine.
Four years later, he also led Sanders’ Maine operation in 2020, cultivating a friendly relationship with the senator that landed him an endorsement from the lefty kingpin in the gubernatorial primary that later helped him win the battle to replace Platner.
Over recent years, Jackson has worked to court the left flank of the progressive movement, which came in handy when Democrats were looking for someone with Platner’s style of politics to replace him.
The father of two children with Lana Pelletier, whom records indicate is his second cousin, was at one point supposed to speak with the Maine chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) on July 20 for a question-and-answer session ahead of the special nominating convention to replace Platner.
Ultimately, that meeting got scrapped with a commitment to “reschedule soon,” according to Discord records reviewed by The Post.
The Maine DSA previously endorsed Jackson’s unsuccessful primary bid for Maine governor.
Jackson also recently dined with Brooklyn-based jewelry designer Alexis Bittar, who helped fundraise for Mayor Zohran Mamdani and backed Platner.
Bittar has crafted luxury products for Lady Gaga, Michelle Obama, Beyoncé, Dua Lipa, among other liberal elites.
“Troy like Graham is a Progressive Democrat believing and fighting against big Corporations lobbying in Government, protecting the working class, medicare for all, lower prescription costs again those fckin drug lobbies), stopping the USA from funding the genocide in Palestine and the list goes on,” Bittar crowed on Instagram.
Jackson currently has a 2.3 percentage point edge over his rival, incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), heading into the Nov. 3 elections, according to the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate. Collins has a history of massively outperforming the polls.
“For years, Troy Jackson has slapped on whatever label will benefit him. Whatever he calls himself now — Communist, Socialist, Democrat — he is a snake oil salesman who is too radical for Maine,” Republican National Committee spokesperson Kristen Cianci told The Post.
Jackson’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
