It’s official – Maine Democrats have officially unloaded Graham Platner.

The so-called blue collar oysterman with the Nazi tattoo and history of rancid comments and abusive treatment of women is no longer on the ballot, after he sent in the paperwork to withdraw. Naturally, he had to be a gigantic dick one last time on his way out.

F**k ICE, Free Palestine.

What a loser. https://t.co/dZnUKMcHfn

— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) July 10, 2026

God willing, this is the last we will hear of this abusive clown show.

However, now Maine Democrats begin the process of having to replace the guy who won over SEVENTY PERCENT in the primary. It wasn’t close, and the next runner-up was Governor Janet Mills, who had suspended her campaign before the primary, and came away with 19 percent. This time around, Mills isn’t even under consideration for the job.

The candidate that seems to be an early favorite for Democrats (before their massive convention in two weeks) is Troy Jackson, a former state senator. But he comes with his own baggage. First, he had a mortgage fraud case similar to Letitia James – claim a house is your primary residence, get a loan, and live somewhere else. Except Jackson decided to sue the former owners, which led The Maine Wire to uncover the mortgage fraud. Nice guy, huh?

Second, he endorsed Graham Platner AND campaigned with him – something which he is trying to forget and stealth delete. But Platner’s stench is going to stick to many a “progressive” leftist for a long time.

Anyone buying those excuses? And Jackson seems to have been a political chameleon, willing to adjust his views for votes. How is that going to play with supporters when the convention starts?

Troy Jackson, a fifth-generation logger and longtime union member, who served as president of the Maine Senate from 2018 to 2024, looks like the natural successor to Platner — at least on the surface.

Jackson, 58, campaigned with both Platner and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on the “Fighting the Oligarchy” tour at the University of Maine in May. He is a longtime ally of the Vermont socialist, having been one of the few Democratic National Committee superdelegates to endorse him over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

This week, the political organization founded by Sanders after his unsuccessful 2016 presidential run, Our Revolution, said it was throwing its “full organizing machine” behind Jackson’s senate bid, stating he “spent his life in the fight working people are asking for.”

He was also endorsed by lefty heavyweight Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who was one of Platner’s top backers in Congress.

But despite sharing Platner’s left-wing populism on economic issues — and having been one of his loudest cheerleaders — Jackson’s political record includes a longtime conversative streak on social matters.

He first rose to political prominence in 1998 by leading a blockade against Canadian workers along the border and has been accused by critics inside the party of pushing GOP-like anti-immigrant and nationalist rhetoric.

In fact, Jackson launched his career as a Republican when he first ran for the Maine legislature in 2000. After losing, he tried again in 2002, but as Independent. In 2004 he morphed again and became a Dem.

But even after that, some of his positions remained very much right of center. In 2009 he voted against same-sex marriage in the Maine Senate and has long thought abortion should be illegal except in cases of rape or incest — even when the mother’s life is in danger.

In 2011, he voted for a state bill that would have declared a fetus a person and in 2013, for mandatory abortion-counseling legislation. Jackson only reversed his views in the last decade, chalking up his earlier positions to his Catholic upbringing.

Endorsements matter, but as we have learned, they can easily be revoked and dropped like hot potatoes. And other candidates will surely cast Jackson’s political past in his face during the convention, as other candidates are getting similar sifting. Take, for example, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who announced her candidacy. The socialist anti-Israel left who voted for Platner has a problem with her because she worked at the Holocaust and Human Rights Center, and therefore, might be too nice to Israel. And yes, this is just one idiot – but the Democrats are being run by such idiots right now.

Shenna,

Because of your past role at the holocaust and human rights center, some have extrapolated that to assume you would have policy that is too sympathetic to Israel in general.

It is obviously perfectly fine to think that the holocaust was atrocious, that Israel has a…

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) July 9, 2026

The purity tests that will be coming out of this convention will be insane – and there’s only two weeks for Maine Democrats to get this sorted out.

The Maine Democratic party announced it will hold a convention Saturday, July 25 in Bangor.

The convention will start at 9 a.m. at the Cross Insurance Center. 601 voting member, with 500 being county delegates, will make up the convention. The remaining members will be from the Democratic State Committee and its executive committee.

“We’re also up against a timeline here that we did not choose, and we face legal limitations because our laws never really anticipated this unusual circumstance,” Maine Democratic Party Chair Charlie Dingman said.

The chair of each county committee will select its own counties delegates. Delegates cannot be pledged to any specific candidate for the U.S. Senate.

All certified candidates will appear on the first ballot. The top five will advance to the second round, and the last-place candidate will be eliminated after each subsequent ballot until someone receives a majority. If the final two candidates remain tied after a revote, the nomination would be decided by a public coin flip.

The rush is bringing the candidates – and the creatively recycled campaign signs – out.

A sense of the scramble and short runway for these new Senate candidates: not enough time to print new campaign signs. A mix of edited Shah for Gov and repurposed Platner for Senate signs here at the Shah kickoff in Freeport pic.twitter.com/VkJn9cUslz

— Alec Hernández (@AlecAHernandez) July 9, 2026

Some candidates already have large odds and detractors stacked against them, and some are just looking to raise their profiles, because why not? When this many candidates are scrambling for a nomination that must be done within two weeks, and it could all come down to a coin flip at the very end… there could be some very hard feelings and bitter losers at the end of this process. And if people are bitter enough that “their” candidate didn’t get the nomination, the rift among Maine Democrats could keep pissed off voters away from the ballot box, or writing in their candidate of choice.

And all of this because Democratic consultants thought Graham Platner was an acceptable candidate.

Featured image: Democrat donkey caricature via DonkeyHotey Flickr, cropped and modified, Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)