Maine Democrats have just installed their replacement candidate in one of the most important Senate races in the country.
Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson won Saturday’s hastily assembled party convention after primary winner Graham Platner quit the race amid a sexual assault allegation that Platner denies.
The party did not send voters back to the polls. Its delegates selected Jackson by a 566-5 vote, putting a longtime Bernie Sanders ally on the ballot against Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
Here is the moment Maine Democrats formally handed Jackson the nomination:
Fox News reports that Jackson crushed his only remaining opponent at the Bangor convention after most of his potential rivals dropped out and backed him. The former state Senate president now enters a race that could help determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.
The report also notes that Jackson campaigned alongside Platner and is backed by Sanders-linked progressives. His platform includes Medicare for All, higher taxes on billionaires, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and ending military aid to Israel.
Five hundred convention delegates were selected through county gatherings, while another 101 came from the state party committee. Jackson arrived with most of his serious rivals already out of the contest and had raised more than $1 million during the compressed replacement race.
That is quite a reset. Democrats went from one Sanders-backed progressive to another, only this time party delegates made the final choice after the primary winner’s campaign collapsed.
Jackson’s own campaign website leaves no room for confusion about what he would take to Washington. It calls for Medicare for All, higher taxes on billionaires and corporations, no U.S. military funding for Israel, and the dismantling and abolition of ICE.
The campaign also lists a federal right to abortion and expanded federal civil-rights protections for the LGBTQ community among Jackson’s priorities. Maine Democrats did not use their emergency replacement process to move toward the center.
The site presents Jackson as a fifth-generation logger and a lifelong labor advocate, but the agenda it asks voters to send to the U.S. Senate is plainly national and progressive. These are the same big-government priorities that Sanders has pushed for years.
The convention result was soon confirmed as the general-election matchup took shape:
The Portland Press Herald reports that Maine had never before used this process to replace a primary winner. Delegates were chosen at county caucuses and then gathered Saturday with only days remaining before the party’s deadline to put a new nominee on the ballot.
The local report says Jackson spent 20 years in the Maine Legislature, including six as Senate president, and now has only about three months to make his case against Collins. He previously finished third in this year’s Democratic primary for governor.
Democrats are asking Maine voters to believe this is a clean start. It looks much more like a rushed transfer of the same political operation.
Platner won the primary. After his campaign imploded, party delegates installed a replacement closely aligned with Platner’s movement, policies, and backers.
This race could help decide control of the Senate. Maine voters now have a very clear choice: Collins, or a Sanders ally who wants to abolish ICE and put Washington on the Medicare-for-All track.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at 100 Percent Fed Up. View the original article here.
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[ H/T WLT Report ]
