ALLAGASH, Maine — Tim Kelly is excited to vote for the Republican running for his Maine Senate district, whom he knows for her time anchoring the local news and through her work for the Catholic church. But don’t ask him about her opponent.
“He’s family,” the 66-year-old said while cutting firewood to sell outside his Allagash home.
The race between Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, and Rep. Sue Bernard, R-Caribou, is likely to draw more than $1 million in spending by Election Day, the vast majority from Democrats. That may belie the raw battle in the shifting district running from the St. John Valley through Bernard’s city, a region of tight-knit communities where politics is personal.
That choice is being framed in stark terms. The argument from Jackson, a labor Democrat who wears his emotions on his sleeve, mirrors one often seen in congressional campaigns: that he gives northern Aroostook statewide influence that Bernard would not be able to match.
“If Sue Bernard wins, a gentleman from Lisbon is going to be Senate president,” Jackson said in a Thursday interview in Caribou, referring to Senate Minority Leader Jeff Timberlake, a Republican who actually lives in Turner.
A day earlier in the district’s only city, Bernard was quick to say that one of her proudest moments since being elected in 2020 was voting against a Jackson-backed bill that would have allowed farm workers to unionize. Local farmers and the Maine Potato Board also opposed it, and it was vetoed by Gov. Janet Mills in January.
“I stood up for Aroostook County that day, and the people who work here, and that’s what I would do from here on in,” she said.
It was in reference to Jackson’s role in Maine’s labor movement. As a logger, he rose in politics after leading a blockade of the Canadian border to draw attention to foreign workers competing with Mainers. But in recent years, he has been paid for his work as a union organizer.
That drew scrutiny in early 2020 after he sent a letter to Bath Iron Works saying the Legislature could reconsider a large tax break due to hiring practices while he was employed by the parent of the shipyard’s biggest union. He also has worked for the national painters union.
Sen. Trey Stewart, R-Presque Isle, who accompanied Bernard to the interview, called Jackson’s actions “a pattern of behavior from a corrupt individual in state government.” Jackson has long rejected this kind of criticism as political smears.
Asked if he had attempted to put walls between his union work and work in the Legislature, he said he didn’t know what those would look like. He noted that other legislators were involved in issues in the Legislature related to their fields, including teachers working on education.
“You see me driving a 270,000-mile van right there,” he said. “I’m not personally enriched.”
Inflation and costs are likely to play a major role in the frigid district, but the issue of abortion has also framed debate after the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturned Roe v. Wade in June. The St. John Valley is the area of Maine most dominated by Catholics.
Jackson first ran for the Legislature as a Republican in 2000 and was elected to the House two years later as an independent, rising from the backbench to Senate leadership by 2012. His past support for abortion restrictions was an issue in his failed 2014 primary run for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, but he has embraced abortion rights in the last decade.
Bernard, once the spokesperson for Maine’s Catholic diocese, answered a Bangor Daily News survey by saying she opposed changes to abortion laws but told the Christian Civic League of Maine that abortion should be restricted. She said the questions were different and that abortion restrictions were not “something I would lead the charge on,” and she would listen to constituents before voting on them.
“I want to do what people want and I’m not going to make up issues,” Bernard said.
There are clear signs of division across the district, with even those who describe themselves as politically unaware knowing details of the Jackson-Bernard race after being deluged by $845,000 in spending from outside political groups. Democrats have piled in all but $150,000 or so. The previous record for a Maine Senate was $450,000, set in 2012.
Jackson supporters often pointed to personal experience. Lou Willey, 67, a former teacher from Caribou, said she worked with Jackson through the Maine Education Association and found him to be a strong advocate of Maine schools and did not think Bernard backed unions.
“When we needed something done, we called Troy,” Willey said.
Lisa Kelly, 56, of Allagash has a Bernard sign on her property. In a town of just 237 residents, she knows it may surprise some that she would go for the candidate an hour and a half away. But she sees Jackson as having a left-wing economic agenda and feels he could have done more to reach out to conservatives in town. She thinks Bernard will be effective.
“We share those conservative thoughts and values,” Lisa Kelly said. “I think she can really do a lot for us and with us.”
Many Bernard voters vouched for Jackson’s character, but their desire to vote against him was based on ideology. Some said Bernard was more representative of Aroostook’s political shift. Once overwhelmingly Democratic, the St. John Valley has seen Republican gains in recent years. Jackson barely won his seat back in the 2016 election.
He is under stress again. National Republicans launched a $100,000 campaign to oust him last week, mimicking the line of attack used on signs erected this summer by the Maine Republican Party falsely suggesting he backed defunding the police. In a Facebook response, he decried “big money.”
When a reporter pointed out the massive Democratic spending, Jackson said he was not the one directing it, and he has always been concerned about money in politics. He also said he has been “pissed off all the time” that the government has not done more for working Mainers.
“If the constituents don’t think that I’ve worked my ass off for them, then they should vote me out,” Jackson said.
