Troy Jackson’s partner responds to Republican attack ads
Screenshots of dueling ads in Maine's U.S. Senate race feature Democrat Troy Jackson, top, and incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins, bottom. (Screenshots via AdImpact)
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Troy Jackson’s longtime romantic partner is criticizing Republican efforts to exploit their relationship and family in the closing days of Maine’s hotly contested U.S. Senate race.
Lana Pelletier, Jackson’s partner for 40 years and his second cousin, wrote in an op-ed published Wednesday in the Bangor Daily News that national Republicans and Jackson’s opponent, Republican Sen. Susan Collins, have crossed a line by focusing on their personal lives.
“Our children have been dragged into this campaign. Our relationship has been mocked. Our family has been talked about as though there is something shameful about who we are or where we come from,” Pelletier wrote. “There isn’t.”
She added, “I deeply resent watching Collins and her allies treat our lives as something beneath them — especially when serious issues involving women are manipulated into political weapons by people who show so little care for the women involved.”
The final stretch of Maine’s Senate campaign has gotten nasty, with national Republicans mounting an all-out attack on Jackson and his family.
On Tuesday, the SLF PAC, a super PAC tied to Republican Senate leader John Thune, R-S.D., began airing a radio ad about Jackson’s family. It’s a country song whose chorus includes the refrain, “If he’ll screw his own family, he’ll screw yours, too.”
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The brass-knuckle tactics highlight the lengths to which powerful D.C. figures will go to win Maine’s Senate seat, which could determine control of the upper chamber during President Donald Trump’s final two years in office.
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Since Jackson became the Democratic nominee on July 25, roughly three-quarters of the $101.8 million in ad spending has backed negative ads, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. Republican-aligned groups have spent about $47 million attacking Jackson, while Democratic-aligned groups have spent some $31 million attacking Collins.
Collins has asked the PAC to take down the ad about Jackson’s relationship to his partner. During a campaign stop Wednesday at Simones’ Hot Dog Stand in Lewiston, Collins said she had “nothing to do with” the spot and reiterated her desire for it to be removed from the airwaves.
Sen. Susan Collins visits Simones’ Hot Dog Stand in Lewiston on Wednesday morning with Joe Manchin, a former Democratic senator from West Virginia. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image
But it wasn’t the only one that attacked Jackson’s family.
One TV commercial from SLF PAC, which is largely funded by out-of-state billionaires, said Jackson “keeps it in the family,” while another claimed that taxpayer money was used for “a sleazy deal with Jackson’s cousins, who are also his in-laws.” Yet another from an SLF-affiliated group, The Maine Standard, calls him “a creep.”
Republicans have also attacked Jackson’s son Chace, who was a state lobbyist during his father’s final term as state Senate president.
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Collins has not remained above the fray. She brought up Jackson’s son’s lobbying during their first televised debate, accusing Jackson of flip-flopping on issues tied to his son’s lobbying efforts.
And in a September video interview with Politico, she coyly noted Jackson’s relationship with Pelletier.
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“Well, I’m not going to bring up the fact that the mother of his two children is his second cousin,” Collins said. “I don’t know whether people know that or not. … It’s not something I’m going to be emphasizing.”
Jackson, meanwhile, has accused Collins of personal corruption. At a debate earlier this month, he implied that she supported Trump’s war in Iran because it would benefit her family’s stock portfolio. Collins demanded that Jackson apologize for the remark. (Collins initially supported Trump’s right to conduct war under the War Powers Act, but voted repeatedly in favor of ending the conflict once the 60-day deadline for congressional approval had passed.)
At her campaign stop Wednesday, Collins noted that she too has been the victim of personal attacks by Jackson and his Democratic allies, who have tied her to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in ads.
Collins voted to table a provision calling for the release of the so-called Epstein files in a defense spending bill, but supported adding such a provision to an appropriations bill. She also joined a unanimous Senate vote in support of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
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An ad by Win Senate, a super PAC linked with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., accused Collins of voting to cover up the Epstein files. It also claimed Collins received $3 million from a former Epstein business partner — a claim rated false by PolitiFact.
#MEPol: "Susan Collins voted to cover up the Epstein Files … Turns out that Jeffrey Epstein's business partner funneled $3M to her Super PAC. Susan Collins took the money and protected child predators."
WinSenate is up with a new #MESen ad. pic.twitter.com/3jWP2dp2CA
— AdImpact Politics (@AdImpact_Pol) September 24, 2026
“This campaign has been unique in Maine’s history in the number of personal attacks,” Collins said. “It’s interesting because in comparing with my colleagues who are in tough races across the country, every single one of them has had an ad run against them trying to link us to Jeffrey Epstein. That is so absurd.”
Pelletier said in her op-ed that she expects people to challenge Jackson on his views and his record, “but there should be a line.”
“Collins has been quick to demand respect and decency for herself,” she wrote. “My family deserved the same.”
Jackson’s partner wasn’t the only one pushing back against Republican attacks Wednesday.
Former Maine state Sen. Cathy Breen speaks at a news conference on Wednesday about ads in the Troy Jackson and Susan Collins U.S. Senate race in Augusta. (Joe Phelan/Staff Photographer)
His former colleagues from the Maine Legislature gathered at the Maine Women’s Lobby in Augusta to speak out against recent attack ads, at least one of which features some of their faces.
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Rebecca Millett, a former state lawmaker from Cape Elizabeth, appears in the “creep” ad crafted by the SLF PAC-affiliated The Maine Standard.
The spot highlights media reports that Jackson would lose his temper as Senate president, including one instance when he allegedly threw a water bottle.
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Millett said the spot “reeks of desperation.”
“They put a black bar across my eyes, and the eyes of many other people here today, to suggest that we were somehow victims or villains,” she said, adding that she believes Jackson was a respectful and thoughtful leader and colleague.
The Maine Women’s Lobby also made a formal endorsement of Jackson at the event, a practice Destie Hohman Sprague, its executive director, said the organization usually doesn’t do.
Destie Hohman Sprague, executive director of Maine Women’s Lobby, speaks Wednesday at the news conference about ads in the Troy Jackson and Susan Collins Senate race in Augusta. (Joe Phelan/Staff Photographer)
When asked about Jackson’s alleged temper toward female colleagues while leading the state Senate, former Maine Sen. Cathy Breen said his behavior was not gendered in any way.
“When you’re in the thick of it, and the budget is coming down to the final hours, all of us are emotional. All of us are stressed out,” Breen said. “So, yeah, has Troy lost his temper now and then? Sure. So have I. I don’t hold that against him.”
Staff Writer Joe Charpentier contributed to this story.
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Tagged: election 2026, senate 2026, Susan Collins, Troy Jackson
Randy Billings is a government watchdog and political reporter who has been the State House bureau chief since 2021. He was named the Maine Press Association’s Journalist of the Year in 2020. He joined. More by Randy Billings
Sara Coughlin covers the Augusta area for the Kennebec Journal. She received a degree in English and government with a concentration in creative writing from Bowdoin College, where she served as an editor. More by Sara Coughlin
