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Maine Democratic Senate race narrows as candidates rally behind Troy Jackson

▶ Watch Video: Maine Democratic Senate candidates criticize ICE during debate

Washington — The crowded Maine Senate race to replace Graham Platner narrowed as Democrats rallied around former state Senate President Troy Jackson in the leadup to the party’s nominating convention this Saturday.

After Maine counties held nomination meetings to select delegates over the weekend, a handful of candidates opted to drop out of the race amid wide-reaching victories for Jackson’s preferred slate. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows announced she was dropping out of the race Sunday, followed by former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Nirav Shah, Maine Beer Company co-founder Dan Kleban and former Senate and House hopeful Jordan Wood, as the candidates encouraged Democrats to come together to defeat GOP Sen. Susan Collins in November.

“Democrats don’t have a day to waste in unifying around that shared goal,” Bellows said in a statement. 

Jackson effectively locked up the nomination during the delegate selection elections over the weekend after candidates on his endorsed slate won a majority of the 601 delegate slots that will determine the nominee. And while Jackson’s endorsed slate of candidates aren’t legally bound to vote for him at the June 25 nominating convention, they’re widely expected to come through for the fifth-generation logger. 

“I’ve been getting text messages all day about what a great job I did, and I didn’t do a god damn thing. All of you just smoked it,” Jackson told organizers in a Facebook video over the weekend. 

Jackson, 58, has been active in Maine politics since 2002, when he began serving in the Maine House of Representatives before moving on to the state Senate, where he was president from 2018 to 2024. Before entering the race for U.S. Senate, Jackson had pursued the governor’s mansion, coming in third in the Democratic primary earlier this year. The self-described “pickup truck progressive” has long ties to independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, after working on his 2016 presidential campaign. Sanders and Platner had backed Jackson’s unsuccessful gubernatorial bid. Platner has not issued an endorsement in race to replace him on the ballot. 

Jackson’s policy positions are in line with Sanders and progressives: he supports Medicare for All and a tax on billionaires, he’s called for ICE to be abolished, and he believes Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza and that no more U.S. dollars should be sent to support Israel’s military. 

With the victories across Jackson’s preferred delegate slate, other candidates were left with little hope of breaking through. Kleban said that it had “become clear from the county nominating meetings that we lack a path forward.”

Maine Democrats have been racing to select a new nominee following Platner’s departure from the race after a woman accused him of sexual assault earlier this month. Under Maine law, the state party has until July 27 to select a new nominee, opting to hold a nominating convention to choose the new candidate with input from Mainers. 

During his gubernatorial run, Jackson would often appear on the campaign trail with Platner whenever Sanders or Rep. Ro Khanna came to town.

“Up until today, I’ve been the only candidate who actually came out and supported Graham Platner,” Jackson said during a gubernatorial debate in May. “I came out and supported Graham because I wanted somebody to change the system in D.C.”

After the allegation against Platner came out, which Platner denies, Jackson called for him to drop out of the race. “He lied to me, he lied to a lot of us,” Jackson said on MSNOW earlier this month. 

For Jackson, the sprint that began with Platner’s withdrawal from the race will continue over the coming weeks, as Democrats prepare to take on Collins in less than four months. 

As the sole Senate Republican seeking reelection in a state that former Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024, Democrats see the race as a key prize in November. But Collins has survived multiple challenges to reelection in her nearly three decades in the Senate, and the late entrance into the race could pose challenges for Democrats. 

With 53 Republicans in the Senate, Democrats would have to flip four seats, while defending a handful of others, to take control of the upper chamber — an outcome that would be all the more difficult without Maine.

South Carolina to hold first 2028 Democratic presidential primary

▶ Watch Video: Democrats expected to approve South Carolina as first primary in 2028, but other states pushing back Democrats on Saturday approved a new presidential nominating calendar for 2028, cementing South Carolina's place as the first official Democratic primary state, as the party looks to elevate states that better reflect its diverse coalition of voters.The vote came during the Democratic National Committee's summer meeting in Austin, where members signed off on a schedule that begins with South Carolina on Jan. 22, followed by Nevada on Feb. 1. New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan and Virginia round out the early-state lineup throughout February, all voting before Super Tuesday.The new calendar goes into effect amid a tug-of-war within the progressive and establishment wings of the party. It also continues a shift away from a tradition that for half a century gave states that are predominantly composed of White voters — Iowa and New Hampshire — outsized influence at the start of the nominating process. Strategists say the new calendar gives greater influence to Black and Latino voters, who make up key parts of the Democratic coalition. "If you're not strong with Latino voters or if you're not strong with Black voters, you know you can only get so far in this calendar," CBS News contributor and Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha said, adding that the schedule shows Black voters "the respect that they're due."Not everyone in the party is on board. Democratic leaders in Iowa and New Hampshire — previously the first and second states to hold primary contests, respectively — excoriated the new map as soon as the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee recommended it, arguing that it diminishes the role of states that have long taken on the responsibility of shaping the presidential nomination battlefield. "New Hampshire's First in the Nation primary is a tested proving ground in a closely contested swing state that forges better candidates and better presidents — and despite what DNC insiders say, that hasn't changed," New Hampshire's U.S. congressional delegation said in a statement. "As a state with highly engaged voters, we put candidates through their paces and thoroughly vet them. And our small size means that actually meeting and talking to voters takes precedence over super PACs or mega-donor-fueled campaigns."Momentum for South Carolina's ascension in the calendar traces back to 2020, when a victory there shifted momentum in the presidential primary that year to Joe Biden after he performed poorly in Iowa, New Hampshire and, to a lesser extent, Nevada. Under pressure from Biden and his allies, the DNC moved South Carolina's primary to first for the 2024 calendar. That cycle, New Hampshire defied the DNC's revised schedule and held its primary before South Carolina, citing a state law that mandates it hold the first primary. In response, the party stripped the contest of its sanctioned status. DNC Chair Ken Martin has signaled that if New Hampshire jumps ahead again in 2028, punishment will be more severe. "This is a calendar this party is actually going to protect," Martin told reporters after the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee met last month to propose a new schedule. The new calendar could impact the ideological battle within the Democratic Party between establishment moderates and more progressive candidates, including far-left democratic socialists. With no obvious 2028 front-runner, the newly approved schedule gives South Carolina, Nevada and the other four early states disproportionate influence over which faction can build early momentum in the 2028 presidential primaries. Among the states granted early slots, only Nevada and New Mexico offer clear advantages to progressives. Michigan has shown openness this cycle to progressives, with the primary victory of Abdul El-Sayed in the Senate race, but historically has elected more moderate candidates. New Hampshire voters have over time shown an openness to outsiders, but they typically have a more independent streak rather than a steep ideological lean. Progressives face an uphill battle in South Carolina, which has fewer of the White voters with college degrees who tend to support further-left candidates, and Virginia, which has long favored more moderate candidates. The decision to elevate states with large Black and Hispanic populations also comes as Democrats fight to stop the GOP from gaining ground with those two groups in general elections. President Trump won 48% of the Hispanic vote in 2024, up 12 points from four years earlier, and he won 15% of Black voters, almost double his share in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center. His share of non-Hispanic White voters remained stable, at 55%.
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