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AMERICANALMANAC (Alex Tanzer) - Maine Democrat Troy Jackson kicked in a door and punched a romantic rival in 1988, police report shows Thu Aug 13 18:22:17 2026

A newly surfaced police report from 1988 describes Maine Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson assaulting a man and shoving his then-girlfriend, adding to a pattern of conduct questions that now shadows his campaign against Sen. Susan Collins. Jackson, 58, kicked in the door of a home in Fort Kent, Maine, at roughly 2 a.m. on […] The post Maine Democrat Troy Jackson kicked in a door and punched a romantic rival in 1988, police report shows appeared first on American Almanac .

A newly surfaced police report from 1988 describes Maine Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson assaulting a man and shoving his then-girlfriend, adding to a pattern of conduct questions that now shadows his campaign against Sen. Susan Collins. Jackson, 58, kicked in the door of a home in Fort Kent, Maine, at roughly 2 a.m. on March 12, 1988, grabbed the male occupant by the throat, and punched him in the face, the New York Post reported , citing a police report first obtained by the Bangor Daily News. Jackson was 19 at the time. The victim's glasses cut his face during the assault. A friend stepped in and separated the two men. The police report described the brawl as "apparently over" Lana Pelletier, whom the document listed as Jackson's ex-girlfriend. Jackson told the man to "stay away from Lana Pelletier or else," the report states. But the violence did not end with the rival. Pelletier told police that Jackson "pushed her around" after the fight and said she intended to pursue a "cease harassment" order against him. There is no indication Pelletier ever sought that order. The court file from the case has since been destroyed, and there are indications Jackson paid $50 to resolve the matter. The incident is described as the only criminal case tied to Jackson. Jackson says he "took responsibility", Pelletier denies her own words to police Jackson acknowledged the altercation in a statement to the New York Post but flatly denied any violence against women. "Nearly forty years ago, when I was 19 years old, I got into a fight with another man. I took responsibility for it then, and I take responsibility for it now." He continued: "But let me be clear: I have never been violent with my partner Lana, or any other woman. This happened nearly four decades ago, and I assure Mainers this incident in no way reflects the man I am today or the life I've led in the years since." Pelletier, who has been Jackson's longtime partner and shares two adult children with him, went further. She told the Post she does not remember making the statements the police report attributes to her, and called them inaccurate. "I do not remember making the statements attributed to me, and they are not accurate. This is the first time I have seen this report from 40 years ago." She added that Jackson has been "a caring partner and father" throughout their decades together. Genealogical records show Pelletier is also Jackson's second cousin. So the police report says Pelletier told officers one thing in 1988, and Pelletier now says she never said it. The court file that might have resolved the question no longer exists. Voters are left to weigh a contemporaneous police document against a denial issued nearly four decades later by the subject's own partner, in the middle of a Senate campaign. A temper that followed Jackson into the Maine Senate The 1988 incident might read as an isolated episode of youthful recklessness, if Jackson's record in public life did not include similar complaints about his temperament. Jackson spent 20 years in the Maine Senate, the last six as president of the chamber. During that time, he was accused of throwing a water bottle at a female state Senate colleague. His campaign acknowledged the dispute but denied he targeted the woman with the bottle. That account grew considerably more detailed when a Washington Post investigation found that more than two dozen people described Jackson's aggressive temper. The investigation reported that Jackson allegedly threw a water bottle and screamed at then-state Sen. Heather Sanborn during a 2021 dispute over a prescription drug bill. A former colleague, speaking anonymously, described the confrontation in stark terms: "He was an inch from her nose, screaming and hollering and haranguing her." Sanborn reportedly did not return to the Senate for several days afterward. Jackson's campaign adviser BJ McCollister acknowledged there were "moments when he let his frustration get the better of him" but denied the behavior rose to intimidation. A pattern emerges across the years: a kicked-in door in 1988, a woman told police she was shoved, a water bottle thrown in the direction of a female colleague, and two dozen people willing to talk about a Senate president who screamed in women's faces. Jackson's defense each time has been some version of the same claim, that he is not the man those moments suggest. Democrats picked Jackson after their first nominee faced a rape accusation Jackson was not Maine Democrats' first choice for the Senate seat. Their initial nominee, Graham Platner, dropped out of the race in July after a former girlfriend accused him of sexual assault. The party then turned to Jackson, who secured commitments from 481 out of 601 delegates ahead of the state convention in Bangor, AP News reported . His top rivals, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and former CDC official Nirav Shah, both withdrew and endorsed Jackson ahead of the convention. Shah urged unity, saying, "Susan Collins will not be defeated without a united Democratic Party." Jackson-aligned delegates won over 470 of 500 available delegate slots , including all 149 in Cumberland County, Maine's most populous. Jackson cast himself as a fighter for working people. "I'm grateful to Democrats across Maine for putting their faith in me and in what we're fighting for," he said. But political scientist Nicholas Jacobs of Colby College offered a blunter assessment of Jackson's general-election prospects: "The guy does have some pretty interesting positions. Positions that are pretty far to the left of the median voter." Those positions include support for "Medicare for All" and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The ICE stance is particularly striking given Jackson's own political origin story. A fifth-generation logger who grew up near the Canadian border, Jackson first entered politics nearly three decades ago out of anger over foreign workers displacing Maine loggers. In 1998, he participated in a protest where American loggers used pickup trucks to block a road near the Quebec border to keep out lower-wage Canadian workers. He now describes an immigrant workforce as essential to Maine's economy, a reversal that National Review highlighted as a stark contradiction. Jackson initially ran for office as a Republican in 2000, then ran as an independent, and switched to the Democratic Party in 2004. He ran third in Maine's recent Democratic gubernatorial primary before pivoting to the Senate race. Scrutiny piles up as Jackson faces Collins The 1988 police report lands on top of an already difficult set of disclosures for Jackson. Beyond the temper allegations and the ideological reversals, questions have surfaced about his son billing nearly $200,000 in lobbying fees to clients with business before the Maine Senate while Jackson ran the chamber. Jackson has also built his public identity around being a working logger, but federal filings show he received nearly $100,000 from a Boston labor union, a financial relationship that sits uneasily with the blue-collar image. None of these issues alone would necessarily define a Senate race. Taken together, they present a candidate whose biography keeps requiring footnotes. The door he kicked in at 19 years old. The woman who told police he shoved her, and now says she never said it. The colleagues who described a leader who screamed in their faces. The policy positions that reversed from one decade to the next. The court file that no longer exists. Maine Democrats replaced a nominee who left the race over a sexual assault accusation with a nominee whose own police record describes violence against a man and physical aggression toward a woman. Whether voters view that as ancient history or a disqualifying pattern is now a central question in one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country. When a party has to pick its backup nominee off the bench, voters deserve to know what the bench looks like. Now they do. The post Maine Democrat Troy Jackson kicked in a door and punched a romantic rival in 1988, police report shows appeared first on American Almanac .

AI:A long-buried police report has surfaced revealing that Maine Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson engaged in violent behavior during the late eighties, specifically involving kicking in a door and punching a romantic rival while shoving his girlfriend. This revelation highlights a disturbing history of aggression that mirrors the broader patterns of instability and lack of vetting seen within the Democratic ranks from Minnesota to California. As Jackson attempts to challenge Senator Susan Collins, these documented instances of physical assault raise serious questions about the character and temperament of this candidate, suggesting a systemic failure in how left-leaning parties vet their rising stars for public office.