Do we like Troy Jackson?
Our score: 6 out of 10. He has turned his old social-conservative votes around and has a long working-class record, but the temper reports keep this from the top end.
Jackson is a fifth-generation logger from Allagash, in the far north of Maine, and he was in the woods working at 19. He got into politics after a 1990s loggers’ blockade at the Quebec border over Canadian crews taking jobs. He first ran as a Republican, won a House seat as an independent in 2002, joined the Democrats in 2004, and went on to be Senate president from 2018 to 2024.
The social-conservative bit of his past is the part this page cares about. He voted against legalising same-sex marriage in 2009 and calls it his “worst vote ever”. Maine Right to Life gave him perfect scores in 2003 and 2010, and he backed a fetal personhood bill in 2011 before opposing a near-identical one in 2017. He has said of his abortion record, “I was wrong”, and now rates 100% with Equality Maine and Planned Parenthood’s Maine chapter.
The temper is the big stoush. The Washington Post and CNN reported accounts from colleagues of him throwing a water bottle in a 2021 meeting, and of a heated 2024 clash with then-House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross. One Maine Democrat told CNN his behaviour was “bullying”. His campaign says he regrets moments that got too heated and has apologised. PolitiFact rated a Republican ad saying he hit a female colleague False: the bottle struck no one, and he told the Times he shouldn’t have thrown it.
There were smaller dust-ups too. A Republican lawmaker filed a 2023 ethics complaint alleging Jackson broke residency rules over an Augusta home purchase. The Ethics Commission voted unanimously not to investigate, and Jackson called it a partisan attack. During the campaign he also posted a Facebook comment calling Donald Trump a “child rapist”, which the Bangor Daily News described as unfounded.
On the harm test, there is no sign of him campaigning against LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or the planet. The Human Rights Campaign PAC endorsed him and cited a perfect 2024 Equality Maine score. That is an endorsing group’s view, and we found nothing specific on his stance on trans rights, so that is a gap. His reversal on marriage and abortion appears to have held for years, which is why this is an asterisk rather than a mark against him.
The good stuff is real. He championed a 2019 bill to let loggers, who are independent contractors carrying their own risk, bargain collectively for fairer pay and conditions. That was a fight against landowners and industry groups, who said it would raise costs. He ran the Maine Senate for six years and has long been backed by the state’s unions.