Republican attack ads mocking Troy Jackson’s relationship roil Maine Senate race against Susan Collins

Gregory A. Rec/Pool/Portland Press Herald/AP/File

Maine’s battleground Senate race is being roiled by a late burst of Republican ads mocking Democratic nominee Troy Jackson over his relationship with his longtime partner, whom Sen. Susan Collins and GOP allies have said is his second cousin.

Collins has distanced herself from one radio ad from the Senate Leadership Fund, the top Republican super PAC in Senate races. “If he’ll screw his own family, he’ll screw yours, too,” says the ad, styled as a song about Jackson.

“Senator Collins believes there have been far too many personal attacks in this campaign,” Collins campaign spokeswoman Blake Kernen said in a statement. “She called for this ad to be taken down the day it went up.”

But Jackson’s allies believe Collins implicitly approved scrutiny of his relationship with Lana Pelletier during a September interview.

When asked by Politico’s Jonathan Martin whether Jackson’s “personal life and the mother of his children” were “relevant” to the race, Collins replied, “Well, I’m not going to bring up the fact that the mother of his two children is his second cousin.”

“She’s the one who unleashed this,” said Rebecca Millett, a former state senator who helped lead a “Women for Troy” news conference after the radio ad’s release. “It’s the typical her: Bait and run. And then, ‘Oh, no, this is terrible.’”

The ad’s line of attack has been noteworthy in a state whose politics is known to be relatively civil, amid a race against a battle-tested incumbent whom Democrats almost certainly need to defeat to win Senate control. Jackson and Collins, both from northern Aroostook County, have traded allegations of corruption and ineffectiveness in public office.

Their tension was encapsulated by a recent debate in which Collins said a protester in the crowd was one of Jackson’s supporters and he responded with a curt, “Oh, shut up.”

Maine Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson told CNN’s Dana Bash he doesn’t regret telling his opponent, GOP Sen. Susan Collins, to “shut up” during a debate.

Pelletier is a social worker from Allagash who has been in a relationship with Jackson for nearly 40 years. They are not married, but Pelletier describes him as the father of their two children and a grandfather to a recent newborn. The Jackson campaign has not responded to inquiries about whether Pelletier and Jackson are second cousins.

“I have never seen anything like that in Maine politics,” Mark Brewer, a political science professor at the University of Maine, said of the radio ad. “That does definitely represent something different.”

Jackson’s campaign said Collins’ call for the ad’s removal rings hollow.

“Susan Collins herself spread these disgusting personal attacks on Troy’s family,” campaign spokesperson Dan Gottlieb said in a statement. “Now she wants Mainers to believe she’s above the very attacks she helped spread.”

The Senate Leadership Fund did not respond to a request for comment. But it has since launched a different radio ad in the race that more obliquely references the relationship, alluding to a report that Jackson in 2022 helped get a cell tower built on land owned by Pelletier’s parents.

SLF has also released a TV ad in the state that brands Jackson a “creep” and suggests it’s partly because he “fathered two kids with his cousin.”

The chorus of attacks grew loud enough that Pelletier broke her silence in a recent opinion column for the Bangor Daily News. She wrote that she “never imagined U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and her allies would stoop this low.”

“Our children have been dragged into this campaign,” she said. “Our relationship has been mocked. Our family has been talked about as though there is something shameful about who we are or where we come from. There isn’t.”

Chris Lydon, the chairman of the Republican Party in Aroostook County, acknowledged family is a sensitive matter for some voters. He questioned whether Jackson’s relationship with Pelletier is “the primary thing to judge someone on” but suggested it was worth mentioning.

“I think people do have a right to know,” Lydon said.

The race has been consistently tight, with polls showing no clear leader. The candidates are especially fighting over women voters, a voting bloc that Collins narrowly won in her last reelection campaign, according to exit polls.

Collins and Jackson went through a gantlet of four debates in 10 days earlier this month, producing a number of memorable moments displaying how aggravated they have become with one another.

Besides the “shut up” moment, there was an exchange at another debate in which Jackson accused Collins and her husband of profiting off the war in Iran. Collins called the allegation “outrageous” and demanded that Jackson apologize; he did not.

Collins and her allies say that such references to her husband, whose consulting work is targeted in multiple Democratic ads, show that Jackson also bears responsibility for injecting family into the campaign.

Kernen, the Collins spokesperson, argued that unlike the incumbent, Jackson has not distanced himself from attacks involving Susan Collins and her husband.

It’s all testing Collins’ longtime efforts to campaign as a bipartisan workhorse who eschews the rancor of national politics. The latest drama played out last week as she was campaigning with former West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat-turned-independent who, like her, has called for more decorum in politics.

The radio ad “goes against her brand, and I can’t ever imagine a scenario where Collins herself would release an ad like that,” Brewer, the political science professor, said.

Still, Collins and her allies have bombarded Jackson with ads for months depicting him as ill-tempered and erratic. And on Friday, Collins’ campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee launched a TV ad attacking Jackson over his “shut up” comment, saying “that’s how Troy deals with women.”

“Troy Jackson is a bully, but Susan is always working for Maine,” a narrator concludes in the spot.

格雷戈里·A·雷克/Pool/波特兰新闻先驱报/美联社/档案

缅因州的参议院关键选战因共和党近期投放的一系列广告而陷入混乱，这些广告嘲讽民主党候选人特洛伊·杰克逊与其长期伴侣的关系，参议员苏珊·柯林斯和共和党盟友称该伴侣是他的远房表妹。

科林斯与参议院领导基金（参议院竞选中共和党最大的超级政治行动委员会）的一则广播广告划清界限。这则广告以一首关于杰克逊的歌曲形式呈现，歌词大意是：“如果他连自己的家人都会毁掉，那他也会毁掉你的家人。”

科林斯参议员竞选发言人布莱克·克南在一份声明中表示：“科林斯参议员认为，此次竞选活动中存在太多人身攻击。她要求撤下这则广告，就在广告发布的当天。”

但杰克逊的盟友认为，科林斯在9月份的一次采访中，实际上默许了对他与拉娜·佩莱蒂尔关系的审查。

当 Politico 的 Jonathan Martin 问及杰克逊的“个人生活和他孩子的母亲”是否与竞选“相关”时，柯林斯回答说：“嗯，我不会提及他两个孩子的母亲是他的远房表妹这一事实。”

“是她一手策划了这一切，”前州参议员丽贝卡·米勒特说道。在广播广告发布后，她曾协助组织了一场“特洛伊女性”新闻发布会。“这很符合她的惯用伎俩：先抛出诱饵，然后就跑路。接着，‘哦，不，这太糟糕了。’”

在以政治氛围相对温和著称的州，这则广告的攻击策略尤为引人注目。此次竞选的对手是一位身经百战的现任议员，民主党几乎肯定需要击败他才能赢得参议院的控制权。杰克逊和柯林斯都来自阿鲁斯托克县北部，两人互相指责对方腐败和渎职。

最近的一次辩论充分体现了他们之间的紧张关系，当时柯林斯说人群中的一名抗议者是杰克逊的支持者，而他则简短地回应道：“哦，闭嘴。”

缅因州民主党参议员候选人特洛伊·杰克逊告诉 CNN 的达娜·巴什，他不后悔在辩论中让他的对手、共和党参议员苏珊·柯林斯“闭嘴”。

佩莱蒂尔是阿拉加什的一名社工，与杰克逊保持了近40年的恋爱关系。他们并未结婚，但佩莱蒂尔称杰克逊是他们两个孩子的父亲，并且最近刚迎来了一个新生儿的祖父。杰克逊竞选团队尚未回应关于佩莱蒂尔和杰克逊是否是远房表亲的询问。

缅因大学政治学教授马克·布鲁尔在谈到这则广播广告时说：“我从未在缅因州政坛见过这样的事情。这绝对代表着一些不同寻常的东西。”

杰克逊的竞选团队表示，柯林斯要求撤下该广告的呼吁毫无诚意。

“苏珊·柯林斯本人散布了这些针对特洛伊家人的令人作呕的人身攻击，”竞选发言人丹·戈特利布在一份声明中说。“现在她却想让缅因州民众相信，她不会做出她自己参与散布的那些攻击。”

参议院领导基金未回应置评请求。但此后，该基金在竞选中投放了一则不同的广播广告，该广告更隐晦地提及了杰克逊与佩莱蒂尔的关系，暗示杰克逊曾在2022年帮助在佩莱蒂尔父母拥有的土地上修建了一座手机信号塔。

SLF还在该州发布了一则电视广告，称杰克逊是“变态”，并暗示部分原因是因为他“和他的表妹生了两个孩子”。

铺天盖地的攻击声迫使佩莱蒂尔打破沉默，最近她在《班戈每日新闻》的专栏文章中写道，她“从未想到美国参议员苏珊·柯林斯和她的盟友会堕落到如此地步”。

“我们的孩子也被卷入了这场风波，”她说。“我们的关系遭到嘲笑。人们议论纷纷，仿佛我们是谁、我们来自哪里有什么可耻的地方。事实并非如此。”

阿鲁斯托克县共和党主席克里斯·莱顿承认，家庭问题对一些选民来说很敏感。他质疑杰克逊与佩莱蒂尔的关系是否是“评判一个人的主要依据”，但认为值得一提。

“我认为人们有权知道真相，”莱顿说。

选情一直胶着，民调显示没有明显的领先者。候选人尤其在争取女性选民的支持，根据出口民调，科林斯在上一次连任竞选中险胜了这一群体。

本月初，柯林斯和杰克逊在 10 天内进行了四场辩论，期间出现了许多令人难忘的时刻，展现了他们彼此之间有多么恼火。

除了那次“闭嘴”事件之外，在另一场辩论中，杰克逊还指责柯林斯和她的丈夫从伊朗战争中牟利。柯林斯称这一指控“荒谬至极”，并要求杰克逊道歉；但他拒绝了。

科林斯和她的盟友表示，民主党多则广告都以她的丈夫杰克逊的咨询工作为攻击目标，而这些广告中提及她的丈夫，表明杰克逊也应对将家庭因素引入竞选活动负有责任。

科林斯的发言人克南辩称，与现任议员不同，杰克逊并没有与涉及苏珊·科林斯及其丈夫的攻击划清界限。

这一切都在考验科林斯长期以来努力塑造的跨党派合作、不卷入国家政治纷争的形象。上周，她与前西弗吉尼亚州参议员乔·曼钦一同竞选时，又上演了一场新的风波。曼钦曾是民主党人，后转为独立人士，和科林斯一样，他也呼吁政治应该更加文明。

政治学教授布鲁尔说：“这则广播广告与她的品牌形象不符，我根本无法想象柯林斯本人会发布这样的广告。”

尽管如此，科林斯及其盟友几个月来一直铺天盖地地投放广告攻击杰克逊，将他描绘成一个脾气暴躁、行为古怪的人。周五，科林斯的竞选团队和全国共和党参议员委员会推出了一则电视广告，抨击杰克逊的“闭嘴”言论，称“这就是特洛伊对待女性的方式”。

广告片中，旁白总结道：“特洛伊·杰克逊是个恶霸，但苏珊始终为缅因州而努力。”