Maine Democrats have settled on former State Senate President Troy Jackson to replace scandal-plagued Graham Platner as their Senate nominee, and, as it turns out, he too has his own personal issues. On Tuesday’s Money, Power, Politics, MS NOW host Stephanie Ruhle sanitized Jackson’s anger outbursts to a simple “temper” while claiming that “might be exactly what voters are looking for.”
Addressing The New Yorker staff writer Susan Glasser, Ruhle declared, “Let's go up to Maine, Susan, because it looks like the race to take Graham Platner’s spot is over, with Democrats rallying around Troy Jackson. Is he the party's best hope for that seat in November? Right, the pushback that we've heard in the last 24 hours, you know, this guy might have a temper. A temper might be exactly what voters are looking for. They want a fighter.”
Maine Democrats replaced Graham Platner threw a water bottle at a female colleague when she didn't vote his way, so how did MS NOW's Stephanie Ruhle respond? Thusly: "Right, the pushback that we've heard in the last 24 hours, you know, this guy might have a temper. A temper might… pic.twitter.com/m8J6xHEB8X
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) July 21, 2026
Here are the opening two paragraphs from a recent Washington Post article on Jackson:
Troy Jackson, a powerful Maine legislator now running for Senate, once angrily threw a water bottle in a meeting after he couldn’t persuade a lawmaker to vote his way.
He yelled at another lawmaker, prompting her to post on social media that straight men were ‘too emotional’ to be in politics. And he cursed and shouted in a meeting with the speaker of Maine’s state House, until she kicked him out of her office.
In its report, CNN claimed the female lawmaker in question decided not to run for reelection and cited Jackson’s anger problems as one reason why.
For her part, Glasser replied, “Yeah. I mean, look, he, you know, he hasn't been tested in—you could argue in the way that the primary system is supposed to work, you know, campaigning for months and being out there in a variety of different platforms. Now, he has been in politics before.”
Turning to horserace analysis, Glasser added, “And this, I think, is the problem for Democrats in Maine, which is a generic Democrat, is very likely to have a strong chance to beat Susan Collins, who, you know, on paper by metrics, would be the most vulnerable Republican incumbent senator facing reelection, given how Maine has voted and given how long she's been in the job, at a time when voters across the political spectrum are looking for somebody new. But generic Democrats don't run. Actual Democrats run on ballots.”
Glasser concluded, “And so the question really is, with this mid-race change in horses, what does that mean? You know, how much are Republicans? How much is Susan Collins going to be able to make this a race, not about herself, but about Troy Jackson or about who the Democratic candidate is? And for me, that's the question. If it's about Susan Collins, she's very likely to lose. If it's about the Democrat, if it's about the Democratic Party nationally, if it's about this specific Democratic candidate, then she may have a chance to hold on and win.”
If Maine Democrats think being a political “fighter” means throwing things at people who don’t vote your way, Ruhle should be having a different conversation.
Here is a transcript for the July 21 show:
MS NOW Money, Power, Politics
7/21/2026
9:23 PM ET
STEPHANIE RUHLE: All right. Let's go up to Maine, Susan, because it looks like the race to take Graham Platner’s spot is over, with Democrats rallying around Troy Jackson. Is he the party's best hope for that seat in November? Right, the pushback that we've heard in the last 24 hours, you know, this guy might have a temper. A temper might be exactly what voters are looking for. They want a fighter.
SUSAN GLASSER: Yeah. I mean, look, he, you know, he hasn't been tested in—you could argue in the way that the primary system is supposed to work, you know, campaigning for months and being out there in a variety of different platforms. Now, he has been in politics before.
And this, I think, is the problem for Democrats in Maine, which is a generic Democrat, is very likely to have a strong chance to beat Susan Collins, who, you know, on paper by metrics, would be the most vulnerable Republican incumbent senator facing reelection, given how Maine has voted and given how long she's been in the job, at a time when voters across the political spectrum are looking for somebody new.
But generic Democrats don't run. Actual Democrats run on ballots. And so the question really is, with this mid-race change in horses, what does that mean? You know, how much are Republicans? How much is Susan Collins going to be able to make this a race, not about herself, but about Troy Jackson or about who the Democratic candidate is? And for me, that's the question. If it's about Susan Collins, she's very likely to lose. If it's about the Democrat, if it's about the Democratic Party nationally, if it's about this specific Democratic candidate, then she may have a chance to hold on and win.
