Maine Democrats swapped out one embattled Senate candidate and landed on another with a family-tree complication tailor-made for a brutal general election.
Troy Jackson, the former Maine Senate president chosen after Graham Platner left the race, has two adult sons with his longtime partner, Lana Pelletier, who is also his second cousin, according to genealogical records first reported by journalist Steve Robinson.
The revelation drops into a contest already under national pressure. Platner withdrew amid rape allegations, which he denied, leaving Democrats to replace their U.S. Senate nominee before a showdown with Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
Jackson is now trying to unseat Collins, 73, in a race both parties view as central to the fight for Senate control. Maine has not had a replacement nominee for U.S. Senate since 1918.
The family connection runs through Thomas Pelletier and Edith Thibodeau, the shared great-grandparents listed in the genealogical records. Their daughter Albertine Pelletier was Jackson’s grandmother. Their son Louis Pelletier Sr. was Lana Pelletier’s grandfather.
🚨 WTF?! Maine’s New Democrat Senate candidate Troy Jackson is in a ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP with his COUSIN, and has TWO CHILDREN with her
THIS is the guy the Democrat Party swapped Graham Platner out for 🤣
Per The Main Wire’s @SteveRob, Jackson and his “partner,” Lana… pic.twitter.com/rnzF98uvXh
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) July 31, 2026
That split in the Pelletier family tree makes Jackson and Lana Pelletier second cousins. Their two adult sons are also third cousins through the same ancestry.
Maine law does not prohibit second cousins from marrying or having children. The state’s additional legal requirements apply to first-cousin marriages, not second-cousin relationships.
Genetic experts generally do not view second-cousin couples as having any meaningful increase in inherited-disorder risk compared with the general population.
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Jackson and Pelletier have been together since high school. In politics, he has typically referred to her as his “partner,” though some older official biographies called her his wife. They have never legally married.
The personal revelation sits awkwardly beside the story Jackson has spent years telling voters about himself.
His political identity has leaned heavily on Allagash, the rural St. John Valley and his background as a fifth-generation logger who rose through organized labor before becoming Maine Senate president.
Democrats made him their nominee in Bangor by an overwhelming margin. Jackson received 566 votes at the Democratic nomination convention, while biopharmaceutical executive Saundra Pelletier, the only other candidate, received five.
National Democrats treated the vote as a reset after Platner’s exit. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York issued a joint statement pitching Jackson as a candidate who could beat Collins.
“Troy Jackson is a fifth-generation logger with a demonstrated ability to win,” Schumer and Gillibrand wrote. “A champion for affordable health care and working people, Jackson has harnessed the grassroots energy in Maine and is well-positioned to defeat Susan Collins, who is more vulnerable than she has ever been.”
Their statement aimed the rest of its fire at Collins.
“Collins is facing record-low approvals after she voted with Trump 96 percent of the time, was the decisive vote for the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, and sold out to the special interests that fund her campaigns after three decades in the Senate,” the senators wrote. “In November, we will defeat Susan Collins and win a Senate majority.”
Republicans are already putting serious money behind stopping Jackson. The AP reported that the Senate Leadership Fund has committed more than $42 million to defeat him.
Collins has tried to brand Jackson as a socialist, according to the AP. She also pointed to his role running Sen. Bernie Sanders’ first presidential campaign in Maine before boiling the attack down to five words.
“He’s a Bernie Bro,” Collins said.
The family-tree issue is only one piece of Jackson’s political baggage.
The Washington Post reported that Jackson had behaved abrasively toward colleagues during his tenure, including allegedly throwing a water bottle in a meeting and clashing with female leaders.
Jackson’s campaign said he apologized and took ownership when those incidents occurred.
“Troy regrets the moments when disagreements became too heated,” campaign adviser BJ McCollister told The Post, “but passion for the issues he advocates for should not be confused with physical intimidation or bullying.”
Another controversy reaches back to Jackson’s public fights with then-Republican Gov. Paul LePage in 2012.
While feuding with LePage, Jackson used the anonymous online alias “Canadians for LePage” to post dozens of comments on Bangor Daily News articles, according to the source material.
The account mocked LePage, attacked his policies and played the role of a Canadian logger benefiting from the governor’s decisions.
It weighed in on unemployment fraud, state borrowing, foreign labor and the Affordable Care Act while also making partisan jokes about Republicans and trading insults with other commenters.
The anonymous account also defended Jackson and corrected readers about legislation he had sponsored. Some posts included detailed information about his employment and bills.
CNN linked the account to Jackson through an email address found in archived Disqus records, campaign materials, legislative filings, financial disclosures, leaked records and private email correspondence.
Even Maine’s Democratic governor has not given Jackson an explicit endorsement.
Gov. Janet Mills said Collins should lose but would not endorse Jackson by name after his nomination.
“We haven’t spoken, but clearly Susan Collins is vulnerable, and she should be — she should be defeated,” Mills said in an interview.
When asked whether the party’s selection process could leave some Democratic voters feeling disenfranchised, Mills did not directly answer. She instead criticized Republicans’ handling of the federal government and Collins’ record.
Mills said Collins’ vulnerability goes “beyond party politics.” She accused the senator of failing to stand up to President Donald Trump’s administration and failing to rein in federal abuses.
Her example was the July 13 shooting of a Colombian man by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Biddeford. Mills described the deadly shooting as a failure of federal oversight and law enforcement training, and said Collins “was part of that.”
Collins has called for a full, impartial investigation and joined the rest of Maine’s congressional delegation in asking the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general for a comprehensive review.
