Troy Jackson entered politics by helping stop traffic at the Canadian border. Nearly 30 years later, he may reach the United States Senate by persuading Maine voters that the man who organized that blockade has changed—and that something important in him has remained steady.
In 1998, Jackson was a young logger from Allagash. Maine loggers believed large landowners and contractors were using Canadian crews to push wages down, and Jackson helped block the road.¹
The men beside him saw someone willing to confront powerful companies on behalf of Maine workers. Others saw economic anger aimed at Canadian workers who had little more control over the system than the Americans stopping their trucks.
That old dispute now follows Jackson as he prepares to challenge Susan Collins. His opponents will present his career as a series of reinventions. He first ran as a Republican, then became an independent and later a Democrat. Earlier in his career, he opposed abortion rights and same-sex marriage. The labor protest that launched him involved Canadian workers; his current campaign supports abolishing ICE. After more than 20 years in the Legislature, including six as Senate president, he still presents himself as a working-class populist.²
Jackson’s career raises the familiar suspicion that a politician may change too readily. Collins presents a less frequently examined danger: a politician can remain personally consistent while the meaning and consequences of that consistency change around her.
That is the larger choice taking shape in Maine.