Troy Jackson, Running for Senate Against ‘Greedy Corporations,’ Says He ‘Can’t Help’ That a PAC He Led Took Corporate Money
Washington Free Beacon
Collin Anderson
October 8, 2026
Maine Democrat Troy Jackson, who is running for U.S. Senate as an opponent of “greedy corporations,” said he couldn’t do anything to stop a PAC he led from taking tens of thousands of dollars from corporations.
During a Thursday evening debate against his Republican opponent, incumbent senator Susan Collins, Jackson was asked to address the fundraising practices of the Maine Senate Democratic Campaign Committee (SDCC), a PAC he led while serving as president of the Maine Senate from 2018 to 2024. During that time, the committee received nearly $54,000 from corporate PACs, including those associated with pharmaceutical giants like Cigna, financial giants like Bank of America, and energy giants like Avangrid, Maine’s primary power utility, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Jackson said that while he had a “real significant role” with the committee, he couldn’t stop the corporate money from flowing.
“I can’t help that an organization that I actually worked with and had a real significant role in decided to take checks from people,” Jackson said, prompting criticism from Collins.
“Troy was head of this PAC, he set the rules,” Collins said. “And for him to pretend that he had no idea what the contributions were to his leadership PAC when it was big tobacco, it was pharma, it was many other companies, just defies belief.”
Jackson’s tenure at the helm of the Maine SDCC—he served as its “principal officer“—is at odds with his message on the campaign trail. Jackson has said Collins “sold out to lobbyists and special interests” while he “fought for working Mainers.” He’s also said he’s running for office “because the status quo isn’t working” thanks to “high-priced lobbyists and corporate greed.” In addition to the corporate money, however, the Maine SDCC received more than $130,000 from firms registered to lobby the state legislature in Maine and more than $22,000 from individual lobbyists while Jackson led it, a Free Beacon review found.
Jackson has also maintained particularly close ties with one lobbyist: his son, Chace, who worked as a lobbyist for a firm founded by Jackson’s former chief of staff while Jackson served as Maine Senate president. Collins took aim at that arrangement during Thursday’s debate, noting that Jackson, a former Second Amendment supporter, voted in favor of two gun control bills as his son lobbied for Maine’s leading gun control group, the Maine Gun Safety Coalition.
“If you look at the number of times that Troy has flip-flopped his position on issues, it usually has to do with issues that his son has been hired to lobby him on.”