By Nolan D. McCaskill
WASHINGTON, July 25 (Reuters) - Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson is poised to accept the Democratic Party's U.S. Senate nomination on Saturday, formally ending the two-week scramble to replace Graham Platner on the ballot for November's midterm election.
Platner withdrew on July 10 after sexual assault allegations, which he denies.
Jackson, a fifth-generation logger and former Republican from northern Maine, locked up the nomination last weekend, when his supporters dominated
the state party's delegate selection process. Jackson's top rivals suspended their campaigns after his decisive showing.
Donations from nearly 25,000 supporters flooded the presumptive nominee's campaign coffers with upwards of $600,000 between Sunday and Wednesday. Jackson's campaign said on Wednesday it had raised more than $1 million since he jumped into the truncated race earlier this month.
Some 600 delegates will select the nominee at a party convention in Bangor. Jackson and Saundra Pelletier, the wealthy chief executive of a biopharmaceutical company, are the only remaining candidates in a race that had ballooned to a field of 13.
MAINE RACE CRUCIAL FOR SENATE
Jackson's acceptance will kick off a 101-day sprint to unseat five-term Senator Susan Collins, a vulnerable Republican who has used her seniority and perch as Senate Appropriations Committee chair to steer resources to Maine.
Collins is the only Republican up for reelection in a state that Democrat Kamala Harris won in 2024, making Maine a top flip opportunity for Democrats hoping to regain control of the chamber for the final two years of President Donald Trump's administration.
Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate majority, but winning Maine is crucial to both parties' midterm strategies. Victory for Republicans would shrink Democrats' path to a majority, while a Democratic upset would support the party's bid for control.
Jackson held a narrow lead over Collins among likely general election voters in a University of New Hampshire poll released this week.
Collins, a 73-year-old moderate with an $11 million war chest, was last reelected in 2020. She won by nearly 9 percentage points, even as Mainers backed Democrat Joe Biden over Trump by a similar margin. Harris, herself a replacement nominee after Biden abruptly withdrew, carried Maine by about 7 percentage points.
Experts say affordability, Trump and immigration are likely to be key issues in the general election. Jackson has called for abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency that has killed several people in high-profile incidents this year, including a 26-year-old Colombian man in Biddeford, Maine, on July 13.
Collins voted for $70 billion in immigration enforcement funding without ICE reforms last month but has called for a pause in the agency's traffic stops. Trump has since said such stops must continue, describing them as one of the agency's most important and effective tools.
Social issues will also likely surface in the contest between Collins and Jackson. Jackson now supports abortion rights and same-sex marriage but opposed both in his state legislative career until his second Senate term in 2016.
His anti-abortion Senate voting record was raised in ads against him during his unsuccessful run in Maine's gubernatorial primary this year.
While it's unclear whether Republicans will invest in similar advertising in the Collins race, Republican officials say his past position leaves Collins less vulnerable over her vote to put Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, which led to the overturning of federal abortion rights.
(Reporting by Nolan D. McCaskill; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
