Troy Jackson speaks to supporters Sunday morning in the Sanford High School parking lot. Photo: Lee Burnett
By Lee Burnett
For a few hours last Sunday, the Sanford Performing Arts Center took center stage in the Maine Democratic Party’s hurry-up campaign to choose a nominee to take on Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Susan Collins.
Many hundreds of people from around York County gathered to choose 84 delegates to represent the county at the state convention in Bangor this Saturday. Five candidates made the trip, all of them campaigning in Sanford for the first time this year.
Troy Jackson made the biggest splash. As people were arriving, he was already in full throat, staging a rally in the parking lot that drew dozens of supporters and most of the assembled media. “Now they’re going to say that a grassroots campaign powered by working people cannot defeat Susan Collins. But you know what?” At that, the crowd answered loudly, “They’re wrong!”
Nearby, a crowd of people in bright green T-shirts made a visual statement for Nirav Shah. Four lesser-known candidates engaged in conversation with attendees, but without entourages or outward advertising, they blended in. Notably absent were candidates Shah and Shenna Bellows, who both withdrew from the race on Sunday, as did Jordan Wood, who was in attendance Sunday.
Speculation about a successor has been building since Senate Democratic nominee Graham Platner withdrew earlier this month in the face of a rape allegation. There was so much interest in Sunday’s event that organizers realized the 864-seat theater, the largest in York County, wouldn’t be nearly big enough. Worried organizers asked people to stay home and vote electronically, if possible, and most did. Just 300-400 of the 2,660 registrants attended the event.
“What do I do if all those people show up?” asked Kathy Purdy, chair of the York County Democratic Committee. Fortunately, Plan B was not needed, she said. “We had never done an event like that before. I am so thankful for all the help we had.”
Though the candidates were campaigning in Sanford for the first time this year, they seemed well-acquainted with Sanford’s biggest current issues – data center development and biosolids gasification.
None of the candidates took a position on the appropriateness of the proposed location for the Aries Clean Technologies biosolids plan. As a long-term answer to the accumulation of PFAS in the environment, both Costello and Jackson said they would ban the manufacture of PFAS-containing products at the federal level. “We don’t need it (PFAS), there are other materials available,” said Jackson. Candidate Wood said he’s unsure about an outright ban.
Jackson, Costello and Wood all support the local data center moratorium and wouldn’t lift it until impacts on water use, electricity rates and environmental impacts are effectively addressed. Jackson said he wants federal action to force companies to disclose ahead of time how AI is going to be used.
He said he supports Maine nurses pushing for full disclosure of the Maine Health contract with Palentir, an AI tech company serving the health care industry. “They won’t explain why,” he said.
The diversity of the crowd was illustrated by an encounter between two people meeting for the first time. Ardent conservationist Melissa Paley of Kittery, whose job is to curb the flow of pollutants, such as fertilizer runoff, into the Piscataqua River, found herself in conversation with Tony Carroll of Limerick, a former dairy farmer. Their conversation was friendly and supportive as Carroll explained his decision to lease some of his best farmland to a solar developer, a decision that enabled him to continue farming corn, hay and beef cattle. Then, Carroll disclosed the tonnage of fertilizer he spreads, and suddenly Paley grew silent.
Chance encounters were common. As voting was beginning, a writer for Sanford Springvale News shared space with two unfamiliar women. One of them asked the writer to sign her election papers and said she was a candidate for the US Senate. At that, the other woman replied, “You are? I am too.” For the record, they were Saundra Pelletier, CEO of a women’s health company and Elisabeth Cote, a top executive at a children’s health agency. They posed for a photo.
More than 400 people applied to be delegates from York County, advertising their candidacies on the State Democratic Party website with 250-word essays. How many of those profiles were actually read is impossible to say. The well-organized candidates handed out lists with the names of delegate candidates pledged to them.
Leah Macomber of Saco and Kelly Nelson of Biddeford commiserated with each other that their chances of being chosen as delegates were slim because their names were not listed on any candidate’s slate. Macomber wore a T-shirt reading “Vote Independent Thinker” and handed out Tootsie Pops labeled “Susan sucks.”
“If you said you were undecided, you wouldn’t be slated to be picked, yeah, which is unfortunate,” said Nelson. “There are so many (essays) to read and everyone is listed in alphabetical order. Not a lot to go on.”
In the end, 101 people were elected to represent York County: 84 delegates and 17 alternates. Among the delegates were four Sanford residents: Adam Cote, attorney and former candidate for Congress; Rachel Sherman, a labor activist and Jackson supporter; Nicole Gorsun, member of Sanford Clean Air & Water Coalition and Jackson supporter, and Matthew Prive, whose profile said he favored a progressive candidate “that puts working people and communities first.”
Gorsun said she believes Jackson is the strongest candidate against Collins because he is likely to inherit the enthusiasm of Platner voters, has a base of support in northern Maine, can rely on the muscle of organized labor and because his progressivism is framed around “bread and butter issues” such as high grocery prices, unaffordable housing, inaccessible primary health care. “These issues are all issues we all care and talk about,” she said.
The speed at which he captured delegates bodes well for him as an opponent to Collins, she said.
“I was pretty surprised at the resoundingly solid support. That impressed me … everyone realizes the importance of defeating Susan Collins.”
Shenna Bellows supporter Stacy Kilroy of Old Orchard Beach said she was stunned at the withdrawal of her candidate but congratulated Bellows on her maturity. She quickly donned a Jackson T-shirt. “He was strong before; he’ll be super strong now,” she said.
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