Troy Jackson, the Maine Democrat nominated just days ago to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins, has been in a decades-long relationship with his second cousin, and the party organs behind him have gone silent.
Independent journalist Steve Robinson published a report Thursday revealing that Jackson, 58, and his longtime partner Lana Pelletier share the same great-grandparents. Genealogical records unearthed by Robinson establish that Jackson's maternal grandmother, Albertine Pelletier O'Leary, and Pelletier's paternal grandfather, Louis A. Pelletier Sr., were siblings. That makes Jackson's mother, Colleen McBreairty, and Pelletier's father, Louis Jr., first cousins, and Jackson and Pelletier second cousins.
The couple, who met as high school sweethearts at Fort Kent High School in far northern Maine, share two adult sons. Jackson has referred to Pelletier as his wife in the past, but locals told Robinson the two have never legally married. The New York Post reported Friday that the relationship is legal under Maine state law, which prohibits marriages only between closer relatives, parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews.
Robinson, who posted his findings on X, noted that such relationships are not uncommon in the rural North Maine Woods region near the Canadian border. Jackson grew up in Allagash, a village with a population of 237 as of the 2020 census.
Jackson's campaign responded to the report with a statement emailed to the Post on Friday that made no mention of the family relationship at all.
"Susan Collins will do anything to distract from the fact that she votes with Trump 96% of the time and has sold out working people in Maine."
The campaign added that "personal attacks on Troy's family are shameful and desperate." Both the Maine Democratic Party and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee were asked for comment. Neither responded.
That silence is worth noting. Jackson was formally nominated at a special party convention on July 25, a rushed process that followed the implosion of the Democrats' original candidate. Graham Platner dropped out of the race in early July after an ex-girlfriend accused him of rape. The allegation ended Platner's candidacy within days.
Jackson stepped into the vacuum. But the compressed timeline left Democrats with a nominee who had not been subjected to the kind of opposition research and public vetting that a normal primary would provide. That gap is now showing.
The cousin revelation is not the only problem dogging Jackson. Breitbart reported that Jackson paid roughly $4,600 in late state income taxes last year after a tax lien over debt dating back to 2020. As of the time of that reporting, Jackson had not filed a Senate financial disclosure or requested an extension, a requirement for federal candidates.
Because Jackson and Pelletier have never legally married, and Maine does not recognize common-law marriage, it remains unclear whether his eventual financial disclosures would need to account for Pelletier's finances. Older official bios referred to Pelletier as Jackson's wife; his current campaign materials describe her as his partner. The distinction could matter under Senate disclosure rules.
And there is more. The Washington Examiner reported that Jackson allegedly ran an anonymous alias account called "Canadians for LePage" to troll former Republican Gov. Paul LePage and Maine Republicans while serving as president of the Maine State Senate. The same report noted that a Senate Leadership Fund advertisement highlighted a 2021 incident in which Jackson allegedly threw a water bottle at a female colleague, though a Maine ABC affiliate fact-check found the claim that it was an intentional attack was not supported.
Republicans and aligned political action committees have moved aggressively to define Jackson before his campaign can establish its own narrative. One ad from Pine Tree Results PAC hit Jackson for his ties to Platner directly:
"Troy Jackson bragged about being one of Graham Platner's earliest supporters. When the news of Platner's Nazi tattoo came out, Jackson stood with Platner."
Collins, meanwhile, holds a $16 million financial advantage over Jackson, according to the Examiner's reporting. Four other Maine Democrats cleared the field for Jackson's nomination, but the party's investment in a candidate it barely vetted looks increasingly like a gamble that is not paying off.
Conservative commentators were quick to note the political awkwardness. Inez Stepman of the Independent Women's Forum offered a pointed observation, as Fox News reported:
"Second cousins seem like relevant information here. But it is funny that Dems keep selecting candidates who fit the vicious stereotypes they hold about rural or working-class people."
Stepman's point lands squarely. Democrats have spent years caricaturing rural, working-class Americans, and their Maine Senate operation has now produced, in sequence, a candidate who withdrew over a rape allegation and a replacement who fathered two children with his second cousin, owes back taxes, and may have run an anonymous troll account while leading the state Senate.
None of this is illegal. Maine law, which has prohibited marriages between close relatives since 1985, was amended roughly two years later to allow even first-cousin marriages so long as the couple presents a certificate of genetic counseling signed by a physician. Second-cousin relationships fall well outside the prohibition. Robinson himself noted that such pairings are not unusual in the sparsely populated communities along the Canadian border.
But legality and political viability are different questions. Jackson is a onetime logger and former state Senate president running in a race national Democrats have tried to make competitive. Every news cycle spent explaining genealogical charts and missing tax payments is a cycle not spent making the case against Collins.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's refusal to comment suggests the national party knows it. A party already struggling with organizational and financial problems at the national level can ill afford another embarrassment in a race it chose to escalate.
The deeper problem for Maine Democrats is not the cousin question itself. It is the pattern. They backed Platner until a rape allegation forced him out. They rushed Jackson onto the ticket at a special convention. And within days, a single independent journalist armed with genealogical records, tax liens, and public bios produced a string of stories the party apparatus apparently never bothered to find.
Jackson's campaign wants voters to focus on Susan Collins's voting record. That is a standard deflection, and it tells you everything about how little the campaign wants to discuss its own candidate's record.
When a party has to replace its Senate nominee over a rape allegation and then can't manage basic vetting of the replacement, the problem isn't one candidate. It's the operation.
