Jackson will need to win over voters like Lindsey Harwath, a healthcare worker who supported Platner
in the June Democratic primary. Harwath hoped to take part in the
process to replace him, but because they are not registered as a
Democrat, party rules didn’t allow them to participate. Local officials
in Augusta sent Harwath to sit in the back with reporters instead.
“We were not under the impression that people were going to be already coming into this process predetermined,” Harwath said of the slates rolled out by various candidates, and most successfully by Jackson. “That seems very undemocratic. That seems like rigging a process before you’ve done it.”
Jackson,
who often campaigned alongside Platner during the original primaries,
knows just how crucial the former nominee’s voters are to defeating Collins. His evolving stump speech has started to incorporate a clear call out to that base, without mentioning Platner by name.
“Whether
you supported me from the beginning, or are still deciding, or support
another candidate, there is a place for you in this movement,” Jackson told a few dozen supporters in a school parking lot in Sanford, Maine over the weekend. “Because we’re not going to defeat Susan Collins by making this movement smaller. There’s no way that that’s ever going to work.”
But
for many former Platner supporters, their concern isn’t Jackson’s views
— it’s his campaign style. In conversations with dozens of Democrats
across the Pine Tree State this weekend, one theme came up repeatedly,
even among Jackson’s supporters: He might just not have the charisma needed to beat Collins.
His gruff, halting speaking style is nowhere near as compelling as Platner’s, and a number of his supporters worried he wouldn’t be able to energize the voters Democrats need to defeat Collins in the same way.
But some said Jackson’s
rugged, everyman vibe could counterintuitively be a major asset in
connecting with Maine voters. He speaks with a thick, northern Maine
accent, often wears baseball caps and t-shirts on the campaign trail,
and can often be seen wearing a belt clip for his phone.
“He was never going to be like the pick of the consultant class,” said Josh Brockman, a 45-year-old Jackson supporter from Biddeford, Maine. “He’s too much of a regular guy. He’s not the slick choice.”
Bookmark popover
Removed from bookmarks