Warren backs Jackson after Platner collapse against Collins

By The Conservative Desk (/journals/conservative-desk)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson greeted supporters together at Becky’s Diner in Portland on Saturday morning before moving to Deering Oaks Park for an afternoon rally billed by Jackson’s campaign as a “Defeat Collins Rally.” The gathering fell on a statewide day of “No Kings” demonstrations, 17 days before the Nov. 3 election, with early voting already under way.

Warren told the crowd that two years of Donald Trump and the Republican majority in the House and the Senate “have never had the backbone to say no to anything.” She cast the choice in Maine’s Senate race in blunt terms. “You can either have a rubber stamp for a wannabe king or you can have a fighter for the people,” she said. “My money is on Troy Jackson.” She tied the slogan of the day to the ballot: “No Kings means we stand up, we show our pride, we show our backbone, we go to the polls, we go for a fighter, we vote for Troy Jackson.”

The Massachusetts senator’s appearance marked a clear shift. Six months earlier she had headlined a Portland rally for Graham Platner, then the Democratic favorite to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Platner’s campaign collapsed after a series of scandals that included a chest tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol, disparaging online comments about sexual-assault victims, and a rape allegation by a former girlfriend, which he denied. Warren withdrew her endorsement after the allegation. The state party replaced Platner with Jackson, a former Maine Senate president and logger who had run unsuccessfully for governor earlier in the year. Jackson is now the nominee with a short runway against an incumbent who has held the seat for nearly 30 years and chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Jackson framed the contest as a break from both Trump and large donors. “I owe Donald Trump nothing, I owe the billionaires nothing, I owe the people of Maine everything,” he told the crowd. He argued that Collins had gone along with the president’s agenda and that a Senate seat “doesn’t belong to someone who’s held it for 30 years.” On stage he mixed up “obsolete” and “absolute” while describing her power in Washington, then joked that he wanted to make that power obsolete. He later responded to news of a nearby ICE arrest with an expletive-laced remark, saying there was “no place for this [expletive] in this country.”

That reaction lands against a basic claim of national sovereignty and the rule of law. Federal immigration enforcement is the government’s job under the Constitution. Treating an ICE arrest as an outrage to be cursed from a campaign stage signals to ordinary Mainers that border and interior enforcement are optional politics rather than public-safety duties. Collins’s campaign, for its part, did not stage a public counter-event on Saturday. Communications director Blake Kernen said Jackson has been campaigning with the far left of the Democratic Party and that Collins would continue “campaigning on her record of independent leadership and delivering results for Maine.”

Warren led a call-and-response on rising costs—fuel oil, gas, groceries, health care, utilities—all “up”—and blamed Republican backing of tariffs, tax policy, health care changes, and the war in Iran. She and Jackson aligned on raising wages, making it easier to join unions, and giving unions more power in negotiations. Jackson supports Medicare for All and a $20-an-hour federal minimum wage. Those are not small adjustments. A national single-payer health system and a sharp federal wage floor would shift costs onto taxpayers, employers, and the very working households the ticket claims to champion, while expanding Washington’s reach over private enterprise and state labor markets. Limited government and free enterprise start from the opposite premise: prices and wages are best disciplined by competition and local conditions, not by another round of federal mandates sold as compassion.

Money became a live dispute in the final stretch. After Collins pressed Jackson on financial disclosures in their debate, his campaign released figures showing nearly 200,000 donors, 95 percent of contributions under $100, support from Mainers in all 16 counties, and “no corporate PACs.” A Jackson campaign spokesperson contrasted that with Collins, saying she is “heavily funded by corporate PACs and wealthy special interests” and remains “at the center of a pay-for-play scandal where she steered taxpayer dollars to campaign donors,” while insisting Jackson would make “billionaires need to pay their fair share.” The same week, reporting noted his disclosures included donations from at least four billionaires. Collins’s campaign answered directly: “Troy Jackson wants credit for refusing corporate PAC checks while enjoying an advertising partnership with a committee that cashes them. Apparently, according to Troy Jackson, corporate money is somehow more acceptable once it passes through a party committee before it lands directly in his hands. Troy’s pledge to not accept corporate PAC money or donations from billionaires comes with fine print – and Mainers should read it.”

The progressive case, stated in its own terms, is that Collins has enabled Trump, that working people need a fighter, and that early energy can flip a long-held seat and help Democrats take the Senate, where Republicans now hold a 53-47 majority. Warren’s language about a “wannabe king” and removed backbones is the sharpest version of that argument. The record also shows Collins’s durability has rested on a reputation for independence and appropriations clout that has repeatedly frustrated Democratic challenges. Replacing a collapsed nominee with a union-aligned former state Senate president, then flying in Warren and, previously, Bernie Sanders, with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scheduled next, is a national progressive project, not a quiet Maine correction.

Around the state the same Saturday, organizers counted roughly 30 related events. In Bath about 400 people turned out with independent Sen. Angus King. In Freeport, organizer Kathleen Meade put attendance at about 75, down from an estimated 3,000 at earlier No Kings rallies; she handed out signs thanking people who had already voted early. Greater Freeport Indivisible disclaimed the Portland event as an official No Kings demonstration because of its partisan nature. Crowd estimates in Portland ranged from “hundreds” in some accounts to more than 1,000 in others. Gubernatorial candidate Hannah Pingree urged volunteers to expand the electorate: “We need to knock on doors, we need to text your cousin, your old roommate, your neighbor that never votes, your kids, your nephew, your niece, you need everyone of them to get out and vote.” Tom Berry, handing out doughnuts in the park, urged young people to register.

Early voting began Oct. 5 and runs through Oct. 29. As of Friday, more than 178,000 ballots had been requested statewide and more than 101,000 returned and accepted, already above the 84,000 early votes in the June primary. In the 2022 governor’s race, 252,135 absentee ballots were issued in total. Collins has no obligation to match a Massachusetts senator’s park rally; she has a record, a committee gavel, and a closing argument about who actually delivers for Maine without the fine print.

Election Day is Nov. 3. The ballots already out will decide whether a progressive replacement ticket, midwifed after Platner’s collapse and amplified by Warren’s national brand, unseats a five-term Appropriations chair—or whether Maine voters keep the incumbent who still holds the seat the challengers say belongs to them.