Graham Platner has yet to withdraw as the Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, but the near-universal calls for him to drop out over a sexual assault accusation have party leaders and would-be replacements scrambling.
Platner, who denies the allegation, has canceled his campaign events and said he is considering the path forward.
But Maine Democrats are working feverishly on the assumption that he’ll step aside before the July 13 deadline set out in state law, with those on the left calling for a candidate aligned with Platner’s progressive vision.
Several prior candidates have raised their hands to take Platner’s place atop the ticket in the contest against incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
Troy Jackson, a former state senator and logger who ran unsuccessfully for governor this year, filed paperwork Tuesday with the Federal Elections Commission to form an exploratory committee for a U.S. Senate run.
A progressive whom Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders endorsed in his gubernatorial race, Jackson could replicate Graham Platner’s appeal to the left flank of the Democratic Party.
Jackson impressed state Democrats in 2014 with a speech he gave at the Maine Democratic Convention during an unsuccessful run for Congress. He spoke that night about leaving his home in northern Maine “every week for job sites away from home while Canadian companies cut wood all around our little town of Allagash,” according to a recording posted online.
“I knew that something wasn’t right,” he said.
Jackson wrote online Monday that Platner “should withdraw from this race today.”
He then told the Bangor Daily News he would be “very, very interested” in running for Senate if Platner ended his campaign.
Jackson would appear to satisfy the demands of progressive leaders who are calling for a candidate aligned with their politics, such as Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Wa., who wrote Tuesday that Platner should “be replaced by a progressive fighter who will deliver for the people and help win back the Senate.”
But Jackson may have to defend an early-career record that skewed conservative on some social issues, including a 2009 state senate vote against a bill to permit same-sex couples to marry.
When he ran for Congress in 2014, Jackson called that “the worst vote I ever took” and said he supported same-sex marriage when it appeared on the state ballot in 2012.
Another Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for governor, Nirav Shah, has expressed interest in running for Senate, saying in an online post Tuesday that he was “evaluating whether I should enter” the contest.
Shah, a former head of the Maine Centers for Disease Control, said, “I’m not an establishment politician, and I’m not an insider.”
