Greetings all. Excited to share with you this recording of the live conversation I had earlier this afternoon with our good friend Devon Murphy-Anderson of the Maine Dems. Troy Jackson and Susan Collins had their first of four debates last night. Here is how Devon saw it:
In case you missed the debate, let me just be the first to tell you that Troy Jackson absolutely won that debate fair and square. He was the Troy Jackson that we all know and love. He was direct. He was genuine. He was authentic. And he made this race exactly what it was supposed to be about the whole time, which was who is going to fight for us working Mainers? And so, what you saw from Troy and what you've been seeing from Troy is that he talks like a Mainer and he fights like a Mainer and he has Maine values — because he is a Mainer.
He's not some longtime Washington politician like Susan Collins, who has spent the last 30 years in Washington, D.C., really strengthening her connections with special corporate interests and billionaires. Troy came ready to talk about issues that Mainers actually care about. Susan Collins spent the entire night on that debate stage on her back foot playing defense. And a lot of the night, Susan Collins was really trying to answer to her record. I think it's important for everyone who's watching who's maybe not a Mainer, Simon, to know that this is very new for Susan. She is not used to losing.
In our discussion Devon provides a comprensive look at where things stand in this critical battleground state - Troy Jackson has a modest lead in most polls; our gubernatorial candidate Hannah Pingree leads by high single and low double digits, the generic ballot has found Dems up by similar margins as the governor’s race; we have a shot at keeping CD-2, though it is a tough race; Dems are optimistic about building on their very narrow margins in both the state House and Senate. Reasons for optimism but much work still to be done.
For this community Devon also reminds us of the power of the early and significant investments we made in the Maine Democratic Party (starting last year), and why we are seeing the fruits of those investments now across this critical battleground state. It was not just in their adroit handling of the transition to Troy Jackson, a remarkable and successful effort, but also in defeating major ballot initiatives that would have made it far harder for us to win this November and their very robust field operation that is now driving the early vote (for as Anderson Clayton told us - “Elections are decided in November, but they’re won in October”):
We’ve got to bank that vote early because we know Republicans are going to turn out big on Election Day. And I think just to rewind, I’ve been on talking to you all before about what we did in 2025, and that really has set us up here. I want to mention two things.
The first is what the Republicans tried to do was put a voter suppression bill on our referendum on our ballot in 2025 and they successfully did that. We fought that tooth and nail. We defeated voter ID at the ballot in ballot box in 2025 because what the Republicans knew is that was going to shave off about 2% of our Democratic vote share, and that would have made a path to victory really a lot easier for Susan Collins. So, we’ve set ourselves up for success there.
We also had Republicans come back and try to put an anti-trans referendum on our ballot for this year as well. To try to help drive their base, right? They’re attacking us from every angle. We did a signature challenge. We challenged every single signature and we got that off the ballot because there was so much fraud. And so we’ve also now set ourselves up to not have that on our ballot.
As you all know, the importance of State Parties, and what Simon has so graciously helped platform for his audience, is that state parties actually work for these three [final] weeks years in advance. And the Maine Democratic Party under Charlie [Dingman], who you all know, and myself and our leadership team have done that really well.”
There is perhaps no better example of what strong parties can do than what Devon, Charlie and the whole Maine Dem team have done this cycle. Now we need to help them finish the job! There are two ways to provide critical “closing strong” financial support to the Maine Dems and the all important effort defeat Susan Collins today:
Contribute to our
which splits contributions evenly among Troy Jackson for U.S. Senate, Hannah Pingree for Governor, and the Maine Democratic Party and its coordinated campaign and early vote effort.Winning Maine FundSupport
directly.Troy Jackson
Here’s the now famous “Can’t eat road salt” clip from last night’s debate:
Here is another compelling moment from the debate:
Enjoy this conversation with a kick-ass rising star of our party fighting it out in one of our most important battleground states. Hit like so more will see it, share it with others, and keep working hard all. For we have a country to save, and elections like these in Maine to win all across the country, together! - Simon
