Maine Democrats pick new candidate after primary shakeup
Fox News correspondent Alexis McAdams reports from Bangor, Maine, on the Democratic Party’s selection of Troy Jackson as their new Senate candidate. This decision comes after Graham Platner withdrew his bid, sparking a scramble for a replacement.
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Former Vice President Kamala Harris backed Democratic Maine U.S. Senate candidate Troy Jackson.
“I know what it is like to step up to the plate with a short runway to Election Day. Troy will have just 101 days between his nomination for Senate and when voters in Maine will cast their ballots,” Harris said in a Monday fundraising email.
Harris was tapped as the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee after incumbent President Joe Biden dropped out in the wake of a widely-panned debate performance against then-former President Donald Trump.
MAINE DEMOCRATS CROWN TROY JACKSON AS PLATNER REPLACEMENT AS FRESH SCRUTINY CLOUDS SENATE RESET
Former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a panel discussion at the Austrian World Summit of the Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative on June 16, 2026, in Vienna, Austria. (Joe Klamar / AFP via Getty Images)
Jackson, a former state senator who ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic Maine gubernatorial primary this year, was tapped as the U.S. Senate nominee at the Maine Democratic Party’s U.S. Senate Nominating Convention on Saturday. The general election will be on Nov. 3.
Graham Platner, who won the 2026 Maine Democratic U.S. Senate primary last month, dropped out of the race earlier this month in the face of a rape allegation, though he had asserted, “Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically false.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Jackson’s campaign on Tuesday.
BERNIE SANDERS REJECTS REGRET OVER EARLY GRAHAM PLATNER SUPPORT DESPITE ‘WARNING SIGNS’
Then-Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks to voters at a town hall at the Elks Lodge 188 on June 7, 2026, in Portland, Maine. (Laura Brett/Getty Images)
Jackson is challenging long-serving incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who has been in office since 1997.
Collins campaign spokeswoman Blake Kernen said in a statement to Fox News on Monday that Harris “knows exactly what he’s going through.”
Troy Jackson speaks as he became the Maine Democratic Party’s choice to be their U.S. Senate nominee to replace Graham Platner on the ballot in November on July 25, 2026, in Bangor, Maine. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
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“Nice to see two people bond over their shared passion for completely bypassing primary voters,” the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) noted in a Monday statement to Fox News.
The Associated Press, Fox News’ Alexis McAdams and Fox News’ Jessica Sonkin contributed to this report.