A new Washington Post report shows that a central premise of Augusta insider Troy Jackson’s pitch to voters doesn’t match his own record as President of the Maine Senate.
Via the Washington Post: “Democrat Troy Jackson is campaigning for Senate in Maine as a Bernie Sanders-style political disrupter who — unlike Sen. Susan Collins (R) — is rejecting corporate PAC money… But as recently as two years ago, Jackson helped lead a PAC that received tens of thousands of dollars from tobacco firms, pharmaceutical companies and affiliated PACs, gambling companies and other industry bogeymen when he led Democrats in the state Senate, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.
“The financial disclosures from his six years at the helm of his party’s political machine in Maine, from 2018 to 2024, show the tension between Jackson’s political-outsider persona on the campaign trail and the roughly two decades he spent in Augusta, the state’s capital, embedded in the state’s politics.”
When pressed about this by Maine reporters, Troy lied. He said, “we didn’t take pharma money.”
This directly contradicts the Washington Post’s reporting and the information publicly available through the Maine Ethics Commission. The Senate Democratic Campaign Committee received more than $1 million in contributions from corporations, including pharmaceutical companies, while Troy was its Principal Officer, such as Merck, Johnson & Johnson, and the Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), Pharma’s top lobbying firm. Under his leadership, the PAC also accepted donations from big tobacco, the gambling industry, alcohol companies, marijuana companies and more.
This summer, Troy Jackson signed a pledge to reject all money from corporate PACs—and to “always disclose” his finances “fully and transparently” — which is especially interesting given he asked for an extension on filing his personal financial disclosures till the last possible day, after early voting begins. Read more: Voters know less about Troy Jackson’s finances than any other major U.S. Senate nominee
The Bottom Line: Troy’s alleged rejection of corporate PAC money is another issue that reflects a recent change of heart, a list that includes reproductive rights, gun control, and marriage equality.