Politics

How Republicans plan to conquer Troy Jackson

Published

1 month ago

July 26, 2026

BANGOR, Maine — Republicans had months to research and rebuke Graham Platner. They now have exactly 100 days to sink his replacement.

Troy Jackson is like Platner but worse. He’s a socialist who’s flip-flopped on policy, a career politician who keeps losing, an insider who is also unknown. His nomination was illegitimate, he has anger issues, and he lacks “rizz.”

That’s just a sampling of the messaging the GOP plans to use to trounce Jackson, the former Maine Senate president who lost this year’s Democratic gubernatorial primary only to glide this weekend into the party’s nomination to challenge Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in November.

“Mainers already rejected Troy Jackson once this year after his failed campaign for governor. Now Democrats are asking voters to believe the politician they didn’t want leading Augusta belongs in the United States Senate,” the NRSC, Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, wrote in a “messaging guidance” document about Jackson, viewed by Playbook. “Jackson is a radical, ill-tempered career politician whose failed record and socialist agenda make him unfit to represent Maine.”

The stakes are high. Collins is the only Republican senator running for re-election this cycle in a state Kamala Harris won in 2024, and Democrats’ hopes of retaking the chamber track straight through Maine — a reality the NRSC admitted is possible in its new donor memo, shared first with Playbook, acknowledging that “Jackson is fully capable of winning this seat if we become complacent.”

Republicans’ first plan of attack is to link Jackson to Platner, with whom he campaigned and shares much of his populist platform. As soon as Jackson’s nomination became official yesterday, the Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate GOP’s super PAC, announced that it was launching asix-figure ad blitz that begins by depicting the two Democrats hugging on stage.

“Jackson is like Graham Platner but worse,” the ad says, citing reporting from WaPo, CNN and other outlets about Jackson’s alleged sharp temper and heated interactions with colleagues.

The NRSC yesterday posted a video on X depicting Platner literally transforming into Jackson — with the caption “No tattoo, same crazy,” a reference to Platner’s tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol. “Troy Jackson is all the baggage without the ‘rizz,” James Blair, who leads President Donald Trump’s outside political operation, said on X.

Jackson campaigned alongside Platner and stood by him through several scandals — until POLITICO reported earlier this month that a woman who dated Platner said he had sexually assaulted her, a claim Platner denies. In response, Jackson publicly disavowed Platner and said he had “lied to me.”

Jackson told reporters yesterday he has not spoken to Platner since then. Asked to respond to SLF’s ad, Jackson said “anyone that I may have argued with, that I might have went too far or got too passionate, I apologize to.”

The GOP’s second push is to brand Jackson as a “political insider” — a bid to undermine his populist bonafides at a time when voters from neither party trust establishment politicians. “We must act immediately to define him before national Democrats frame him as a populist outsider,” the NRSC memo said.

“Chuck Schumer forcefully removed Graham Platner from the ballot against the will of Maine voters, only to replace him with a deranged and scandal-plagued political insider,” SLF Communications Director Chris Gustafson said in a statement to Blue Light News.

Part of that strategy is to not only label Jackson as a longserving member of the establishment (Collins, for what it’s worth, has held her seat for nearly three decades), but as a political insider who has failed when seeking higher office. As state Senate president, Jackson was the second-highest ranking official in Maine — but he ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for Congress in 2014 and for governor earlier this year, a fresh wound Republicans are eager to pick at.

Compounding that insider image is the way Maine Democrats selected Jackson: While more than 200,000 Mainers voted for Platner in the primary, just 566 Democratic delegates actively chose Jackson at yesterday’s nominating convention — a fact Republicans hope to spin into a narrative that Jackson was coronated by party insiders. “Not one single vote was cast for Troy Jackson” in the Senate race, RNC Chair Joe Gruters said on X.

“Just one month ago, Troy came in third in the Democratic primary for Governor. Now he will run for Senate as the third choice of his party insiders,” Collins campaign spokesperson Shawn Roderick said in a statement to Playbook. He added, “in a process concocted by the Maine Democratic Party establishment, a 24-year Augusta insider was appointed to run for the Senate by fewer than three-tenths of one percent of its primary voters.”

Jackson, for his part, appears committed to maintaining his image as a populist who, as has become his campaign motto, comes neither from the left nor the right, but “from the bottom.” He’s more eager to bring up being a fifth-generation logger than his decades of experience in state politics — and at any mention of his relationship to Platner, he’s quick to pivot to his role as part of a broader pro-worker movement. And his campaign is staying laser-focused on attacking Collins.

“Only Susan Collins could spend nearly 30 years in Washington voting with Donald Trump 96 percent of the time and taking millions from corporate special interests, then call a fifth-generation logger from Allagash a ‘party insider,’” Jackson campaign adviser BJ McCollister said in a statement to Playbook. “Mainers know who Troy Jackson is—and they know exactly who Susan Collins works for.”

Asked yesterday to respond to the GOP messaging shortly after clinching the official nomination, Jackson told reporters that he attributes Republicans’ attacks to “Senator Collins trying to make sure that she can win re-election on a really bad record.”

“I’ve been in the legislature for 20 years,” he added. “I do believe I’ve been vetted. I’ve been tested. People know exactly what I’m fighting for. They know that I’ve had their back, and they know they can trust me.”

Andrew Howard contributed to this report.

Politics

Gavin Newsom’s first 2028 test: This fall, in Nevada

Published

7 hours ago

September 7, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

LAS VEGAS — If California Gov. Gavin Newsom runs for president in 2028, next-door Nevada will be a crucial test. This fall’s governor’s race is offering a preview.

As GOP Gov. Joe Lombardo runs for reelection, he’s trying to pin high Nevada fuel prices — a majority of which is imported from California — on “Gavin Newsom’s energy policies.” He lambasts California as too expensive and too regulated. And he’s hammering his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Aaron Ford, for accepting Newsom’s endorsement, betting that it will turn off Nevada swing voters.

“The contrast is simple: I’m fighting Gavin Newsom’s agenda and Aaron Ford is trying to import it into Nevada,” Lombardo said in a statement to Blue Light News.

This could be a test run for 2028, when Newsom may call upon Nevadans — one-fifth of whom were born in California — to deliver him a primary victory in the early-voting state, and possibly a presidential victory.

“They understand California costs more,” Donna West, chair of the Nevada Democratic Party’s senior caucus, said of Nevada’s California expats. “They also understand that California is the fourth-largest economy in the entire world, and that Gavin Newsom ran that as effectively as he possibly can.”

Newsom’s office declined to comment. A person close to the governor, granted anonymity to discuss the sentiment in his orbit, said they are “thrilled” Republicans are spending money to “plaster Newsom’s name across a key early state.”

“Republicans seem awfully concerned about an endorsement from someone who leads the 2028 Democratic field in Nevada by nearly 2-to-1,” the person said, pointing to a November 2025 Emerson poll of a hypothetical 2028 Democratic primary field.

Ford, for his part, shrugs off the attacks.

“Lombardo tries to cast blame elsewhere, but everyone knows that when the war started in February, that we saw our gas prices increase almost immediately,” Ford told Blue Light News after a recent town hall in Las Vegas. “People believe their own eyes, and they remember their experiences.”

The demonization of California is nothing new in Nevada politics: For years, Republicans have blasted their western neighbor as too expensive and too woke.

But the stakes are higher, and the connection more palpable, this year, as Newsom explores a presidential bid. He would likely need to perform very well in Nevada, now second on the Democratic calendar, to build early momentum toward the party nomination. And come November 2028, he’d need to fare well in Nevada again, this time among the state’s general electorate, a plurality of which are independents.

Newsom has stumped for Democrats across the country this cycle, and he blitzed through the South this week, including a swing through South Carolina, whose Democrats will vote first, right before Nevada, in 2028.

But Republicans are looking to weaponize Newsom’s Silver State swing in July, where Ford introduced him at a new Las Vegas field office as “the governor of the great state of California.”

“Our next president!” an audience member shouted, eliciting cheers.

The Lombardo-aligned Better Nevada PAC shared polling with Blue Light News in July showing Newsom’s favorability 20 points underwater in Nevada and losing a hypothetical 2028 head-to-head with Vice President JD Vance. Shortly thereafter, the PAC began an ad blitz tying Ford to the California governor.

Billboards touting Newsom’s endorsement of Ford, paid for by the PAC, now line highways across Nevada, and digital and streaming ads have run consistently since the visit. “Newsom and Ford: Shared vision. Shared values,” one ad says.

A person familiar with the PAC’s internal polling, granted anonymity to discuss private data, said it shows Newsom’s endorsement is now the second-most-known datapoint about the attorney general.

“Gavin Newsom is the singular most unpopular elected official in Nevada,” said Jeremy Hughes, a longtime Nevada GOP strategist running the Lombardo-aligned PAC. “Aaron Ford brought him into the state. … There’s no better way to help him out than to put up these signs and run ads, letting people know that he’s excited about being endorsed by Gavin Newsom.”

Republicans in the state have long blamed Californian expats for housing shortages and rising prices and connect their opponents to California liberals. A surge of ex-Californians leaving the state during the Covid-19 pandemic, some fleeing high taxes and cost of living, accelerated the trend.

Sam Brown, the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in 2022, blasted the “energy policies of Gavin Newsom”; in 2018, GOP governor nominee Adam Laxalt lamented the “Californization” of Nevada, even as Californians bankrolled his campaign. During Lombardo’s first run for governor in 2022, he slammed incumbent Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak for taking his cues from Newsom: “Don’t let Steve Sisolak turn Nevada into California,” one post said. Republicans tied their opponents to Nancy Pelosi for decades.

Lombardo’s argument this time around is more focused. He notes that the vast majority of Nevada’s gasoline comes from California, and argues that California’s efforts to cut carbon emissions have caused fuel prices to soar. A gallon of gas in Nevada costs nearly $5, according to AAA, one of the highest prices in the nation.

“The policies coming from Gavin Newsom and California Democrats … don’t stop at their state line,” Lombardo said in a statement. “Nevada and other states import a significant portion of our fuel from California, so when Governor Newsom shuts down refineries and imposes regulations that reduce supply and increase costs, Nevada families feel the consequences at the pump.”

It’s a strategy that allows Lombardo — running in a difficult national environment for incumbent Republicans — to acknowledge voters’ economic pain without blaming President Donald Trump or his own party. Indeed, Lombardo shared an April column in the Nevada Independent that placed blame at the feet of both Newsom and Trump. (Lombardo, in his post, blamed only Newsom.)

Democrats don’t think voters will buy it. ‘“As far as gas prices, it’s so obviously increased since the war,” Rep. Dina Titus said. “People in Nevada aren’t stupid.”

Ford has his own millstone to saddle Lombardo with: the president. At a recent town hall in Las Vegas, he repeatedly blasted the “Lombardo-Trump economy” that is “making everything too expensive.”

“Voters absolutely tie the handling of the economy to Trump,” said Mike Noble, an independent Phoenix-based pollster who works in Nevada regularly. “Instead of blaming Trump, why not tie it to the boogeyman next door and blame California?”

Politics

‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing

Published

1 day ago

September 6, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing

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Politics

Trump wants the Postal Service to radically overhaul mail voting. But ballots are already going out.

Published

3 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump’s controversial demands for the Postal Service to overhaul and monitor millions of mail ballots hit another snag on Friday, when North Carolina became the first state in the nation to start sending out ballots for the November election.

In March, Trump signed the initial executive order, which aimed to crack down on mail-in voting — which he regularly alleges without evidence is a vector for widespread voter fraud — and assert an unprecedented amount of federal control over the upcoming elections.

Under this order and the subsequent rule drafted by the U.S. Postal Service, the USPS would refuse to deliver ballots to states that failed to provide lists of eligible mail voters or did not adhere to an approved envelope design style.

Since then, the order has faced legal challenges, and it remains paused by a federal judge’s orders. But the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow the new rule to proceed — something current and former election officials from both parties say would be both a legal nightmare that oversteps the federal government’s traditional role in elections and a logistical one that is happening far too close to the November election to implement even if they agreed with it.

“Why the hell are you rocking the boat this late in the game?” said Stephen Richer, a former Republican recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona, who has clashed with Trump allies for defending the security of the 2020 election.

Still, election officials are trying to project a sense of normalcy for voters, particularly in North Carolina, which serves as a test of whether established local election systems can operate normally amid intensifying federal scrutiny.

“I want to emphasize this point because there has been a lot of outside noise: Our county workers are ready,” Sam Hayes, a longtime Republican lawyer in the state and now executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said in a Thursday afternoon press conference.

He added, “All we can do is what we’re doing. … It is business as usual as far as I’m concerned.”

Despite the legal challenges, the Trump administration has continued to press the courts to let it proceed. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to lift an order from a Massachusetts judge which temporarily prevents the USPS from enforcing their rule. It is the second time the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to step in, after winning an earlier victory in which the high court dismissed an earlier hold on the rule as premature.

“The uncertainty is coming from a single activist judge who continues to try and obstruct President Trump from implementing commonsense measures to protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans vote in American elections,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement. “These safeguards for mail ballots were proposed months ago giving election officials ample time to prepare for the 2026 election.”

The USPS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Election officials said that if the rule goes into effect this close to November, it would cause chaos and place added strain on the USPS and election officials. And an anonymous federal whistleblower said in a report circulated earlier this week by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) that the USPS was moving forward in a “secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed process” to try to implement the new system ahead of the midterms.

In the coming weeks, states across the country will follow North Carolina’s lead. Nine other states will begin mailing ballots in the next two weeks, according to a tracker from the National Conference of State Legislatures — with the biggest day for mailing coming 45 days before the election in mid-September.

“It would be so outrageous to try to let this go into effect. It’s hard to even imagine,” said Ben Hovland, a senior fellow for democracy at the progressive think tank Center for American Progress and former Democratic commissioner with the Election Assistance Commission who was fired by Trump in July.

He added, “It would be a break-glass moment for our democracy.”

The rule would require meticulous changes to ballot handling and tracking practices that Hovland said are impossible to implement before Election Day in about two months, effectively disenfranchising millions of voters.

“Ballots are printed. Envelopes are printed. You can go on and on with all the practical reasons that show that implementing something like this at this time is not feasible,” he said.

Richer said he doubted the new rules would bring about more security. Even if the USPS received lists from the states, according to the postal service’s final rule, it would not do any additional vetting of the list, Richer said.

“It’s just that the mail ballots have to be on that list, and I don’t see what added value for election integrity that does,” he said.

He added, “It creates a lot of administrative burden, and I think it creates a lot more opportunity for error.”

While a decision looms in the courts, election officials and experts cast doubt on the likelihood of the rules going into effect before November. A more pressing issue, they said, is the confusion and uncertainty surrounding mail-in ballots, which could subvert and change the behaviors of voters.

“It makes things seem messy or difficult, and it can dissuade people from participating or coming out to vote,” Hovland said. “It certainly also helps establish a pretext to make bad faith claims about election results.”

Hovland said that while none of these claims of voter fraud are backed up with facts, they could cause Americans to lose faith in the voting process.

Still, some current officials contended they were well-prepared for whatever happens — and that they’d be able to communicate effectively with voters who have become increasingly buffeted by dramatic rhetoric about the once-unmentioned nuts and bolts of actually running an election.

“There’s always a lot of noise around elections, that’s not going to change, and it can be hard to differentiate that from what’s actually going on on the ground,” said Jason Tyson, director of external affairs for the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

As Election Day approaches, Tyson and election officials said they urge voters to check their registration status and make a plan to vote.

He added, “I think we’ve got a really well-trained, solid staff who are ready, and who have gone through all of the checks and balances and points of contact that we need to do to get to where we are.”