Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson dominated Saturday’s Democratic county caucuses, capturing roughly 91 percent of the first 319 delegates decided and moving within striking distance of the nomination to face Republican Susan Collins in November.
Jackson won at least 290 of the 319 delegates selected across the first eight Maine counties to hold caucuses on July 18, according to the Bangor Daily News. With a total of 601 delegates set to convene in Bangor on July 25 for the state nominating convention, Jackson fell just 12 delegates short of the 301 needed to clinch the race outright, meaning eight additional counties voting Sunday could push him over the threshold.
The progressive logger from Allagash ran up the score through superior organization. Jackson’s campaign released a carefully coordinated slate of delegate candidates with minimal overlap—just 10 to 20 names—with any single rival, while his three main competitors overlapped with each other by more than 100 names in some cases, signaling disarray among the opposition. “I think some of the other ones might have had to throw some people on at the end,” Jackson told reporters in Augusta, according to the Bangor Daily News.
Jackson’s dominance reflects the unusual circumstances driving the race. Maine Democrats were forced to hold this unprecedented delegate-selection process after Graham Platner, who had won the Democratic primary, withdrew from the ballot in early July following allegations of sexual assault. Platner denied the allegations but suspended his campaign within days of the allegation being reported by Politico, according to reporting from the BBC and Forbes.
Jackson’s three main rivals are Nirav Shah, the former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention; Shenna Bellows, Maine’s Secretary of State; and Jordan Wood, a former 2nd Congressional District candidate. Despite the crowded field, no rival has shown organizational strength approaching Jackson’s. The Bangor Daily News reported that Jackson’s slate had almost no overlap with those of Shah, Bellows, or Wood, who drew from a similar activist base and struggled to differentiate their delegate slates from one another.
The July 25 convention will formally decide the nomination, though Jackson’s lead is commanding enough that a reversal would require an unprecedented shift. Eight more counties—including York, Aroostook, and Oxford—were set to hold caucuses on Sunday, completing the delegate selection process before the convention.
Sources
- Bangor Daily News — Troy Jackson’s delegate counts, county-by-county results, candidate slate overlap, and Jackson’s quote
- Politico — Jackson’s organizing advantage and delegate dominance across eight counties
- BBC — Graham Platner’s withdrawal and sexual assault allegation
- Forbes — Platner’s campaign suspension and denial of allegations
