Free Republic

Throughout Graham Platner's Senate campaign, Democrats at the state and national levels repeatedly demonstrated that, at bare minimum, they were going to look away from the well-documented evidence of his antisemitism, his anti-Americanism, and his complete lack of respect for women and the boundaries they set. Worse than that, though, were the Democrats like Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17) who not only knew about the scandals but who excused them by proclaiming that they had gotten to know Platner and that he was a "changed man" who was no longer sexting women who weren't his wife on problematic social media apps...

A new poll indicates longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins is ahead of her Democratic challenger in a crucial Senate showdown in blue-leaning Maine. Collins, who is running for a sixth six-year term in the Senate, stands at 49% support among likely voters, with former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, the Democratic nominee, at 46%, with 5% undecided in the New York Times/Siena poll. Collins' three-point edge is within the survey's margin of error. Democrats are heavily targeting Collins as they work to flip the seat, which is key to their efforts to win back the Senate majority from the Republicans...

In the final weeks of 2019, a top fundraiser for Sen. Susan Collins walked into a perilous meeting at a Corner Bakery in Washington, D.C. For the first time in her two-decade Senate career, the Republican lawmaker from Maine was in danger of losing her seat. President Donald Trump’s dismal approval ratings were dragging her down in the polls, and she was falling behind her likely 2020 Democratic challenger in fundraising. Scott Reed, head of the Collins super PAC, was on a mission to close that gap. Reed was meeting that day with three executives from a Hawaiian defense contractor,...

...Republicans have spent years warning that China should not be allowed to buy American farmland. But some Republican insiders are getting paid by the Chinese-controlled company sitting squarely in the middle of that fight.... ...Among them are former aides to Republican Sens. John Warner and Susan Collins, a former House Republican Conference official, and a former U.S. Department of Agriculture official.... ...disclosure lists DeLacy, Ross, Joel Roberson, and former USDA official Peter Tabor lobbying more broadly on “issues related to foreign ownership of agricultural land.”..

Poor Troy Jackson. He can’t buy a serious ticket to a U.S. Senate seat without first enduring a ribald ribbing on social media. X users were having more fun laughing over Troy’s marital partnership with his second cousin than attendees at an American Legion bean supper in Allagash, Maine pop. 240. After Maine Wire chief editor Steve Robinson reported that the former state senate president is attached to his second cousin, with whom he has two kids, all bets were off for X users. “His favorite dating app is 23AndMe,” PoliMath joked on X. “Sydney Sweeney eat your heart out,”...

…Allagash tipsters and genealogical records confirm that Troy Jackson’s longtime significant other, Lana Pelletier — his high school sweetheart and the mother of his two adult sons, Chace and Camden — is, in fact, his second cousin by blood. Jackson and Pelletier share the same great-grandparents: Thomas Pelletier and Edith Thibodeau. Thomas and Edith’s daughter Albertine was Troy’s grandmother; their son Louis Sr. was Lana’s grandfather. That makes Troy and Lana second cousins on the Pelletier line.… First cousins share a pair of grandparents. They inherit, on average, about 12.5 percent of their DNA from the same recent ancestors. That...

🚨 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 Pelletier, share great grandparents, making them second cousins. They then decided to pop out two children. The Democrats are having a REALLY tough time finding candidates who aren’t total freaks 😂

At least his Reddit history isn’t out there. Newly minted Maine Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson frantically deleted almost all of his past social media posts heaping praise on accused rapist Graham Platner, The Post has learned. Jackson, a former lumberjack and onetime Maine Senate president, had been a staunch backer of Platner up until a former girlfriend publicly accused the Marine veteran and dilettante oyster farmer of sexual assault earlier this month. In all, the 58-year-old Jackson appears to have scrubbed at least 20 posts boosting Platner before the allegations emerged, based on information from the Internet Archive’s Wayback...

Sen. Bernie Sanders insisted that he has no regrets about his initial stance standing by disgraced oyster farmer Graham Platner despite an avalanche of warning signs. Sanders (I-Vt.) had been among Platner’s earliest backers, catapulting him to prominence with his endorsement shortly after the oyster farmer jumped in the race for Maine’s Senate seat. “No, I don’t think so,” Sanders told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday when asked about whether he had regrets for not abandoning Platner sooner. The self-described democratic socialist had stuck with Platner during a string of scandals, defending him after revelations emerged that he...

Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson officially secured the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate on Sunday, capping off a fast-moving replacement process that began after Democratic nominee Graham Platner withdrew from the race earlier this month. Meeting at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor, Democratic delegates overwhelmingly selected Jackson as their nominee, giving him 566 votes to 5 votes for fellow candidate Saundra Pelletier. The decisive margin ended weeks of speculation over who would replace Platner on the November ballot and sets up a high-profile general election against six-term U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). Jackson accepted the nomination before...

Congress on Thursday split on advancing a pair of war powers resolutions aimed at forcing President Donald Trump to abandon his war with Iran, as the conflict escalates into a deadly new phase and oil tops $100 a barrel. The moves were the first vote since Trump informed Congress that he restarted the war with Iran following the breakdown of peace negotiations. The conflict’s revival after weeks of a shaky ceasefire comes just months before the U.S. midterm elections. It threatens to scramble the majority Republicans’ plan to maintain their razor-thin majorities. The Senate on Thursday voted 47-49 to kill...

On July 8, within minutes of Graham Platner abandoning his campaign for U.S. Senate, a 29-year-old Democratic activist named Cheyenne Hunt took to X to declare that his downfall would not be the last. “What happened in Maine should serve as a clear message: The days of women being sacrificed at the altar of our elections are over,” she wrote of Platner, who was accused of sexual assault. You may not have heard of Hunt, but you are almost certainly familiar with her work. A lawyer and progressive content creator, Hunt worked with Platner’s accusers to help orchestrate the media...

WASHINGTON — Former logger and onetime Maine Senate President Troy Jackson is on course to replace accused rapist Graham Platner as the Democratic Senate nominee following a series of party caucuses over the weekend. As results from the Pine Tree State’s 16 counties showed Jackson running away with the committed delegate count, would-be contenders Nirav Shah, former head of the state’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention; state Secretary of State Shenna Bellows; Maine Beer Co. founder Dan Kleban; and ex-congressional hopeful Jordan Wood dropped out one by one. “Today, I am stepping aside, and I am doing it for...

Democratic Senate contenders are dramatically out-raising their Republican peers, according to Federal Election Commission data — with Georgia’s Jon Ossoff and James Talarico in Texas leading the pack. Eight of the top 10 Senate candidate fundraiser this year are Democrats, whose top contestants have raked in $574 million, compared to the Republicans’ $336 million, per the FEC. Incumbent Sen. Ossoff (D-Ga.) is the biggest fundraiser on both sides, having raked in a jaw-dropping $77 million as of June 30, and has a staggering $42.5 million in cash on hand. He’s raised nearly $98 million as a Senate candidate, including the...

Former state Senate President Troy Jackson is racking up support to become Maine’s next Democratic Senate nominee, with both his top opponents ending their campaigns on Sunday. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and physician Nirav Shah, a former top public health official in the state, both announced they would be leaving the race. Bellows made her announcement Sunday morning, while Shah exited the race Sunday evening after Democrats across the state selected delegates to next week’s state nominating convention. Shah threw his support behind Jackson. “To Maine Democrats: Susan Collins will not be defeated without a united Democratic Party....

r/tankiejerk: ForwardDiamond3484. Ana Kasparian is victim-blaming Graham Platner's accuser. July 8, 2026. https://www.tiktok.com/@destinydebates/video/7660271699652250893 https://www.reddit.com/r/tankiejerk/comments/1uqz3c9/ana_kasparian_is_victimblaming_graham_platners/

On Monday morning, an ICE agent shot at a driver who was reportedly driving a vehicle at the agent, according to authorities. One witness said that the driver was "trying to hit" the ICE agent. The car was seen being surrounded by ICE officers on footage as the car was going slowly in a circular motion. It was not immediately clear if the car was traveling in circles before or after the shooting took place. In reaction to the incident, Collins posted to X, "The shooting in Biddeford requires a full and impartial investigation of what happened. It is my...

A driver was shot dead Monday while trying to mow down Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Maine, according to authorities. Graphic footage on social media shows a man lying by the side of the road near a car, with a bullet hole visible through the driver’s side of the front windshield following the incident in Biddeford just after 7:15 a.m., the Portland Press Herald reported. The unidentified driver reportedly accelerated at ICE agents at an intersection in the small town before the officers shot him dead, eyewitnesses said. Officers in green vests surrounded a car and drew their...

The Democratic Party is at war with itself — and in Maine, the fight has spilled into the open. Graham Platner, an alleged rapist with a Nazi tattoo on his chest, won the Democratic nomination for United States Senate last month, beating the candidate the party establishment had recruited by a commanding 53-point margin. For months, Republicans and others had warned that Platner was unfit for the job. The Democrats did not care. As soon as party leaders saw polling that suggested he could beat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November they embraced him, hosting him in Washington, DC, and...

Apple and Google spent months suppressing negative news stories about the scandal-plagued Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner prior to his recent downfall, according to a new study obtained by Fox News Digital. The Media Research Center (MRC), a conservative watchdog group, found that Apple News and Google News published zero stories between November of last year and May of this year about the various controversies that muddied Platner's Senate bid, including headlines about his Nazi tattoo and his offensive Reddit posts. The MRC study said the blackout in coverage began after a poll released in late October suggested Platner...