Maine Democrat Troy Jackson is running for U.S. Senate on a promise to fight corporate greed and lobbyist influence, but campaign finance records show the committee he led took hundreds of thousands of dollars from the same interests he now attacks.
The Maine Senate Democratic Campaign Committee collected nearly $54,000 from corporate PACs, more than $131,000 from registered lobbying firms, and over $22,000 from individual lobbyists between 2018 and 2024, the entire stretch Jackson served as president of the Maine Senate. A Washington Free Beacon review of the committee's finance disclosures put the combined haul at more than $207,000. Jackson was listed as the committee's "principal officer" throughout that period.
The SDCC exists to keep Democrats in the majority in Maine's upper chamber, and to keep the senate president in his chair. Jackson held both posts simultaneously. The money flowed from pharmaceutical giants, energy conglomerates, Wall Street banks, and the very lobbying shops Jackson now blames for rigging the system against working families.
Cigna Healthcare's PAC sent nearly $9,000 to the SDCC between 2022 and 2024. Mylan, the pharmaceutical manufacturer, gave $5,000 in 2018. After Mylan merged with Upjohn to form Viatris, the successor company contributed another $1,375 in 2023 and 2024. Pierce Atwood, a lobbying firm that has represented Merck & Co. and PhRMA, the drug industry's main trade group, also contributed to the committee.
Jackson's own campaign website, as recently as May, declared that "Maine patients shouldn't be at the mercy of greedy pharmaceutical companies." The SDCC's social media account struck the same note in April 2020, posting that "Troy Jackson fights for patients. Every day."
On the energy side, Avangrid, the parent company of Central Maine Power, contributed $15,500 between 2022 and 2024. Central Maine Power itself gave $1,000 in 2018. The utility serves more than 650,000 customers across the state. Jackson's campaign site accused Central Maine Power of moving "money to Wall Street investors" while reaping "egregious utility profits." Bank of America's PAC also gave to the committee.
Preti Flaherty, a lobbying firm that represented gas companies including Global Partners and NRG Energy, contributed as well. So did other registered firms, bringing the lobbying-firm total to $131,625.
The corporate cash is only one layer of the conflict. Jackson's son, Chace Jackson, spent years as a registered lobbyist working the same state legislature his father presided over. The younger Jackson worked at Preti Flaherty, where he represented Global Partners as it lobbied against a 2019 bill targeting the company for emissions violations. That bill died in the Senate his father led.
Chace Jackson later joined Resurgam Group, a self-described "full service lobbying" firm launched by B.J. McCollister, Troy Jackson's former chief of staff, a former executive director of the SDCC, and a current adviser to Jackson's Senate campaign. In 2024, Jackson's final year in the Maine Senate, Resurgam billed nearly $200,000 in lobbying compensation from nine of Chace Jackson's clients alone.
Those clients included Diageo, the multinational liquor company, and the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, the state's leading gun control organization. Chace Jackson lobbied for two gun control bills that Troy Jackson voted in favor of. The overlap between the father's votes and the son's client list has drawn scrutiny, and the Senate Leadership Fund, a conservative group, released an ad calling Jackson "just another dirty politician" and citing his son as "one of the highest-paid lobbyists in town."
Jackson once enjoyed NRA backing and was known as a Democratic supporter of Second Amendment rights. His son's work for the state's top gun control group, paired with the elder Jackson's votes on those same bills, marks a shift that raises questions about whose interests shaped the change.
On the campaign trail, Jackson has cast himself as a fifth-generation logger and working-class champion taking on a corrupt system. He accuses Republican incumbent Susan Collins of having "sold out to lobbyists and special interests" and says he is running "because the status quo isn't working" thanks to "high-priced lobbyists and corporate greed." His current priorities page calls for lowering prescription drug costs and making "greedy corporations pay their fair share."
But Jackson's campaign quietly removed a more detailed "issues" page from its website sometime after May 16, replacing it with the vaguer "priorities" page. The archived version had contained the sharpest anti-corporate language, including the attacks on Central Maine Power and pharmaceutical companies. The shift suggests the campaign recognized the tension between Jackson's rhetoric and the financial record now coming into public view.
Jackson's campaign responded to the Free Beacon's inquiry with a statement that did not address the SDCC contributions directly. A spokesperson said Collins "has sold out to special interests" while Jackson "has fought for working Mainers" and "is guided by one goal: fixing our broken system so Maine's working families stop getting squeezed while the rich get richer." The SDCC itself did not respond.
Jackson faces Sen. Collins with a steep fundraising deficit. AP News reported that Collins has raised more than $16 million compared to Jackson's roughly $1 million, giving the Republican incumbent an overwhelming financial edge with less than four months until Election Day. Jackson hails from Aroostook County in northern Maine, the same rural, heavily Republican region Collins calls home, and previously finished third in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, a result that raised questions about his viability as a statewide candidate.
Jackson's political biography adds another wrinkle to his populist brand. He first ran for office as a Republican in 2000, won a Maine House seat as an independent in 2002, and switched to the Democratic Party in 2004. He later served as political director for Bernie Sanders' presidential campaigns in Maine. In 2017, Jackson joked to reporters that he "would've ran as anything, I would've ran as a communist" if it meant getting elected to help people in his area, a line Republicans have seized on. The RNC called him "a snake oil salesman who is too radical for Maine."
His campaign has also drawn scrutiny over personal disclosures and past conduct. Breitbart reported that Jackson had not filed a required Senate financial disclosure and paid roughly $4,600 in late state income taxes after a 2020 tax lien.
Separately, the Washington Examiner found that Jackson's campaign treasurer, Peter Sarasohn, a former Sanders budget director, simultaneously served as treasurer for a super PAC supporting another progressive Senate candidate in Michigan. Jackson's campaign replaced Sarasohn the same day the Examiner asked about the dual role, filing the change more than four hours after the outlet's initial inquiry.
National Review noted that Jackson supports Medicare for All, abolishing ICE, a federal right to abortion, and cutting all U.S. support for Israel, positions that mirror those of Graham Platner, the disgraced candidate Jackson replaced on the Democratic ticket. Maine Democrats hoped Jackson would bring less baggage. The finance disclosures, the lobbying entanglements, and the growing list of unanswered questions suggest otherwise.
Jackson built his brand on the claim that corporate money corrupts politics. The records show his own committee was happy to take it, year after year, from the same industries he now promises to punish.
Voters can decide what to call that. The polite word is contradiction. The honest word is hypocrisy.
