Remember how Democrats pushed rapey commie Nazi Senate candidate Graham Platner off the ballot not because he was a rapey commie Nazi, but because polls showed him losing to RINO Susan Collins in November?
Well, the “we don’t need no stinking voters” nominating committee has picked his replacement. Tiny problem: he may not be eligible to run.
Maine Democrats gathered in Bangor on Saturday to select a replacement for Graham Platner, whose Senate campaign collapsed under allegations of sexual assault – which he denied – that surfaced after his June primary win. Former Senate President Troy Jackson formally won the nomination. He will face Republican Sen. Susan Collins in one of the nation’s most closely watched Senate races, a race that Democrats have deemed critical if they hope to win the majority in the Senate.
However, one inconvenient detail threatens to complicate Jackson’s coronation: a Republican state lawmaker says Jackson may not be legally eligible to accept the nomination at all.
State Rep. James White (R-Guilford) sent a letter to Secretary of State Shenna Bellows asking her office to determine whether Jackson, or any candidate who lost a primary for a different federal, state or county office in June, qualifies as a replacement nominee under Maine law. White wanted the question settled before Bellows certifies whatever comes out of Saturday’s convention, but that didn’t happen, which could be a problem.
According to White, Jackson’s own ballot history might make him legally ineligible. Jackson ran for governor earlier this year, lost that Democratic primary in June, and became his party’s Senate nominee through a replacement process rather than a primary vote of his own.
Under Title 21-A, Section 331 of Maine election law, “a person may not file, whether by primary election or nomination petition, as a candidate for more than one federal, state or county office at any election.” He also points to Section 351, which imposes similar restrictions, and Section 363, which requires that a political committee filling a nomination vacancy “shall choose a qualified person to fill the vacancy.”
Whether Jackson still counts as a “qualified person” after losing a statewide primary is the crux of White’s argument. “The Department should resolve this question before accepting or certifying any replacement nomination,” he wrote.
White reaches back to 1974 for precedent, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Storer v. Brown, which described primary elections as “an integral part of the entire election process.” His argument is that treating June’s primary and November’s general election as two separate contests cuts against both the Court’s reasoning and the Legislature’s stated intent to keep candidates from seeking more than one office “at any election.” White’s letter frames this as standard sore loser logic. Laws of this type exist across the country to stop a candidate who loses one race from reaching the general election through a side door.
As the 2024 selection of Kamala Harris to replace tofu-brained-but-nominated Joe Biden at the top of the ticket showed, the shadowy cabal that actually runs the Democrat Party seem to feel they can dispense with primary nominees selected by actual voters when inconvenient. But Maine Democrats’ desire to correct their own screw-up by tossing the legally nominated Platner may have screwed themselves. “The filing deadline for replacement candidates is July 27, 2026, by 5:00 p.m.” So theoretically, after Monday it will be too late to pick someone else if Jackson is indeed ineligible. Of course, Democrats in the past have shown that actual election laws are no obstacles to their Will to Power, as when they substituted Frank Lautenberg for the disgraced Robert Torricelli in the 2002 senate race, even though it was way past the statutory deadline when Torricelli dropped out.
But if Democrats end up not being able to field a nominee after having tossed Platner off the ballot, there’s not a “Ha ha!” big enough to celebrate the schadenfreude with.
Tags: 2026 Election, Democrats, Elections, Graham Platner, James White (Maine), Maine, Shenna Bellows, Susan Collins, Troy Jackson, Zero Hedge