Republican ads call Troy Jackson and his family corrupt. Are they telling the truth?
Troy Jackson waves to supporters after joining Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Thursday during a More Perfect University "Students vs. Billionaires" town hall at the State Theatre. (Staff photo by Derek Davis)
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Mainers have almost certainly seen the ads accusing Troy Jackson of corruption. There are nearly $14 million worth of them blanketing state’s airwaves.
Republicans nationwide have used personal attacks prominently in their campaign messaging. Last week, Ohio Republicans aired an ad featuring a Democratic candidate’s estranged parent calling her a liar. In Texas, Republicans used AI-generated ads to take aim at a Democratic candidate’s Christian faith.
Now, as Maine’s U.S. Senate race heats up, Sen. Susan Collins and allied super PACs have looked to label her Democratic challenger as “a creep” and his family as “corrupt.”
“Special interests paid Jackson’s son. And Jackson pushed their agenda,” one ad states.
“Troy Jackson’s family got paid. We got played,” says a female voiceover in another.
But many of the ads calling Jackson corrupt lean into innuendo rather than verifiable facts.
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Most of the ads point back to Jackson’s son Chace, who worked for years as a lobbyist in Augusta while his father was Senate president.
But while Chace Jackson’s line of work and his father’s position may give the impression of a conflict of interest, there have been no complaints lodged with the state ethics commission regarding the Jackson family, according to assistant director Martha Currier.
“As far as we’ve seen, there’s been nothing — No red flags or anything like that,” Currier said.
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Still, ethics experts say politicians generally should avoid behavior that even raises the appearance of a conflict of interest — regardless of whether they actually violated ethics rules or norms.
“The concern we have is not even necessarily that there’s this improper behavior,” said Delaney Marsco, director of ethics at Campaign Legal Center, a D.C-based nonprofit that offers guidance to candidates and advocates for stricter ethics laws locally and nationally.
“It’s more the question of access and influence, and who gets that?” she said. “And in this case, it could raise the appearance that because he’s the son of a powerful legislator, (Chace) gets better access, more influence than other people do.”
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Chace Jackson did not respond to requests for comment. Troy Jackson’s campaign called the ads misleading and claimed Republicans are attacking Jackson’s family because they are “unable to defend (Collins’) voting record.”
“Susan Collins and her allies are dragging Troy’s son through the mud with ads that fall apart as soon as anyone checks the facts,” campaign spokesperson Maggie Amjad said in a statement. “Mainers deserve an honest debate about the candidates’ records.”
The Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC that has spent millions of dollars producing and airing ads accusing Troy Jackson of corruption, did not respond to requests for comment.
SOUTH PORTLAND POLLUTION
The Senate Leadership Fund has spent nearly $3 million on one ad claiming a company hired Chace Jackson to lobby against a bill that would have cracked down on emissions during his father’s tenure as Senate President.
“With Jackson in charge, the bill went up in smoke,” the voiceover says. “Coincidence or corruption?”
The ad’s claims omit important context about the legislation and Troy Jackson’s role in its defeat — or lack thereof.
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It cites a 2019 Portland Press Herald article about legislation drafted in response to a South Portland petroleum tank farm violating emissions standards. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency knew the tanks had been exceeding emissions limits for years, but the extent of the pollution only became public after the owners settled with the federal government in 2019.
A pair of bills meant to address the problem were introduced into the Maine Legislature shortly after**.** The company that owned the tank farm, Global Partners LP, retained the Maine law firm Preti Flaherty to lobby in the State House that year.
Chace Jackson and the firm lobbied on both bills. The first, which required state regulators to notify municipalities when the EPA issued a notice locally, was signed into law. The second, which would have strengthened emissions testing, was killed in committee — but there is no evidence that was because of work done by either Jackson.
Troy Jackson was not on the Environment and Natural Resources Committee that considered and ultimately killed the proposal, which was also opposed by a number of other groups, including the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. Global Partners LP did not submit testimony for or against either bill.
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SLF ads also claim Chace Jackson “raked in almost $200,000 from special interests.” But that total was paid to the firm he worked for over the course of the entire session: Not to Chace specifically.
State law doesn’t require lobbying firms to break down their associates’ pay, noted Currier, with the state ethics commission. As a result, she said there’s “no way for us to know” how much Chace Jackson was paid. Still, it’s unlikely it was anywhere near the total cited on the contract and in the ads.
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MAINE MARITIME ACADEMY
One of SLF’s largest ad buys lays out a bombastic, and false, claim: Troy Jackson steered $13.4 million in taxpayer funding toward one of his son’s clients.
Maine Maritime Academy, a public college in the coastal town of Castine, had retained Chace Jackson as a legislative liaison before a bill was introduced to bolster the school’s funding in 2024.
The bill would have given the academy some $13 million to offset rising inflation. It was a bipartisan effort. Troy Jackson was one of 10 legislators from both parties who cosponsored it.
While the bill passed the Senate, it ultimately died in the House. The Maine Maritime Academy received no additional funding from the legislation — a far cry from the $13.4 million SLF PAC’s ad claims.
Still, Marsco with the Campaign Legal Center said Troy Jackson cosponsoring a bill that his son lobbied for leaves the impression of unethical behavior.
“Here, again, there’s no evidence of illegality,” Marsco said. “But if somebody is getting special access or special influence by virtue of their family ties, that raises concerns in the minds of the public.”
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The TV spot also distorts unrelated news reports to further its claims. In the first, a WGME anchor describes “allegations of fraud and wrongdoing.” The second clips a NEWS CENTER Maine reporter saying “rot and corruption in Augusta.” But neither clip has anything to do with the Jacksons or the bill.
AROOSTOOK CELL TOWER
The SLF PAC started airing an ad last weekend that calls Jackson a “crook and a creep” and references a claim that he made a deal with communications company to get a cell phone tower put on his in-laws’ land.
“The taxpayer dough secured by Jackson is now exposed as a sleazy deal with Jackson’s cousins, who are also his in-laws,” the ad’s voiceover says. Troy Jackson and his partner are reportedly second cousins, which means they share a great-grandparent. Their relationship is legal across the country.
The ad’s portrayal of how the cell tower deal came about and where the money came from is disputed by those involved in it.
The company behind the tower, Wireless Partners LLC, used a $180,000 grant from the Maine Connectivity Authority to build it in December 2022.
But the Maine Connectivity Authority’s president, Andrew Butcher, said that the $180,000 didn’t come from Maine — it was federal funding secured through the American Rescue Plan Act, and it didn’t go toward a tower in Allagash.
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“That funding was awarded by the MCA after Board evaluation and recommendation — not due to any recommendation or involvement from Troy Jackson,” Butcher said in a statement.
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Jackson did applaud the tower’s construction; he had been advocating for years to improve cell service in northern Maine, his campaign noted, which has historically been sporadic and routed through Canada.
GUN CONTROL
For much of his career, Troy Jackson was one of Maine’s most staunchly pro-gun Democrats. He had previously received support and high marks from the National Rifle Association.
That changed abruptly in 2023.
In October of that year, a gunman killed 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston. It remains the deadliest mass killing in state’s history.
Soon after, state legislators began drafting bills to strengthen gun laws that could have helped prevent the killings. Jackson, then Maine Senate President, began publicly rethinking his positions.
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Shortly after, the Maine Gun Safety Alliance retained a Portland lobbying firm to garner support for a suite of gun control bills. Chace Jackson was one of the firm’s employees.
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There’s no evidence that he directly influenced his father’s position. But the appearance of a conflict of interest has given Collins and PACs supporting her a line of attack.
“If you look at the number of times that Troy has flip-flopped his position on issues, it usually has to do with the issues that his son has been hired to lobby him on,” Collins said during an Oct. 8 debate.
Troy Jackson has maintained since the shootings’ immediate aftermath that the carnage in Lewiston prompted his policy reversal. He reiterated that at a campaign event this month.
“Eighteen funerals changed me,” he said. “Sometimes leadership means having the guts to admit that what you believed before isn’t good enough anymore. I couldn’t look at those families and tell them nothing had to change. So I changed.”
Staff Writer Billy Kobin contributed to this report.
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Tagged: election 2026, lewiston shooting, maine maritime academy, Sen. Susan Collins, Senate President Troy Jackson, South Portland, Susan Collins, Troy Jackson
Dylan Tusinski is an investigative reporter with the Maine Trust for Local News' quick strike team, where his stories largely focus on money, drugs and government accountability. He has written about international. More by Dylan Tusinski
