Dem
47
GOP
53
Amazing as it sounds, the Democrats dumped a unsuitable candidate just before an election and found a replacement post-haste and did it with transparency, voter input, and little carping. Troy Jackson is no clone of he-whose-name-shall-no-longer-be-spoken, but his politics are basically the same and that seems to be enough for progressives. He is older, not a great speaker, and doesn't look like a Hollywood working-class hero, even though his ancestors have been chopping down trees roughly since the tree was invented.
Jackson is sort of known in Maine, but not so much. He was president of the state Senate, but let's be honest here. Do you know who is president of your state Senate? See the problem? To a large extent, money can fix that, though. TV and Internet ads depicting Jackson in a flannel shirt with a chainsaw in hand will go a long way here. Projecting that image on radio is a bit tougher and ME-02, which is most of the state, is very rural, so (car) radio is probably the dominant medium there. Still, unlike the now-deposed candidate and Sara Gideon last time, Jackson is from Northern Maine (Allagash, ME). If he had lived 4 miles farther north, he be a Canadian, like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). Sen. Susan Collins (R-MEW) is also from the North, which always was an advantage in ME-02. Jackson cancels that out.
After his win at the state convention, Jackson gave a victory speech. It was all about attacking Collins for being more loyal to corporations than to Mainers. He also noted that in 1996, Collins promised to serve only two terms.
A bigger issue is ICE and the killing of Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford, ME. Jackson is going to hang that around Collins' neck, due to her supporting ICE and voting to fund it extravagantly.
Republicans will focus on attacking Jackson for having a hot temper, but Jackson could turn that into an advantage. He could say: "Are you angry with how things are going in politics? Well, so am I and I let people know it." They will also call him a communist and the spearpoint of the Red Menace. It worked for Joe McCarthy, so why not now?
Well, for starters, in the 1950s, there was a Red Menace, the Soviet Union. Now Russia is a gas station with nuclear weapons that can't even defeat a mid-sized country with a hastily assembled military. No DSA member (which Jackson is not) sees Russia as a country to envy. The U.S.' main geopolitical enemy now is China, which calls itself communist, but the economy is almost pure unadulterated cutthroat capitalism. Of course, the voters the Republican ads are aiming at are not really much interested in comparing economic systems. All they know is: communism, bad. Will it work? We would guess it won't because there is no Red Menace now as there really was in the 1950s. While the war in Iran is ongoing, the Cold War is over. (V)