Troy Jackson rolls up his sleeves and jumps onto the beer counter. The 58-year-old now stands a good one and a half meters above the ground, with around 500 cheering supporters in front of him and rows of dark beer bottles behind him. “The government in Washington is broken,” he shouts in the hall of the Maine Beer Company in the coastal town of Freeport. "The people in the country want change. And I'm looking forward to it!"
The fifth-generation woodcutter appears combative in his speech, but he never gets specific. When he was substituted in the summer, Jackson initially seemed like an emergency solution: Graham Platner, the actual candidate and young hope of the left-wing Democrats, had resigned due to allegations of sexual assault. But the national momentum of his party is now also supporting Jackson. A few days before the election, his chances of winning the Senate seat are pretty good. The Democrats are also likely to defend the governorship in the country's northeastern state.
What is happening in the US state of Maine is happening nationwide. The party benefits from Donald Trump's unpopularity. The majority of Americans oppose the war in Iran and there is great disappointment over broken price promises. The consequences of the war and a heavy-handed tariff policy have driven prices for fuel, heating oil, food and cars to record highs. This is the opposite of what Trump wanted to achieve.
However, dissatisfaction is not a sure-fire success for the blue election victory. To do this, the Democrats must win back important groups of voters that Trump won over to his side in 2024, especially the working class. Their alienation from the party began long before, probably in the Obama years, when a number of factories closed and large parts of industry moved to Asia.
It was precisely this structural change that laid the foundation for Trump's victory in 2016. This is what Democratic Senator John Fetterman argues. In his latest book, he accuses his own party of having lost touch with the working class, which was once its backbone.
The Democrats' theory is now: Once workers realize that, contrary to all hopes, Trump's economic policies are doing them more harm than good, they will vote blue again. The question of whether this can be achieved will likely be decided not only by the upcoming midterms, but also by the fight for the White House in two years.
Caribou is located 400 kilometers north of Freeport, near the border with Canada. A cold wind blows across the small town's main street as Chris Lydon gets out of his pickup and unlocks his office. Inside on the wall, Donald Trump stands as a life-size cardboard cutout next to an American flag. “Unfortunately, he’s missing a hand,” said Lydon, Republican district chairman in Aroostook County. “It fell off at some point.”
It must have been a while ago that the man in his mid-sixties took the cardboard president with him to appointments. In the conversation he speaks cautiously about Trump. “People are angry because of the high prices for gas and heating oil,” he says. Now that it's getting colder, this is particularly difficult. In the far north, most people heat with oil. The price increase is unmistakably a consequence of the Iran war, says Lydon. At the same time, he believes the attacks are necessary to eliminate Tehran's nuclear program.
“Even if everything is certainly not going perfectly under Trump, people here continue to vote Republican,” he believes. Ultimately, the alternative is left-wing democrats, “radical Marxists,” as he calls them. “People don’t want that.”
And yet the die-hard Republican admits that when it comes to the presidency, “more substance, more vision and less political trolling” would be appropriate. Lydon also believes Trump's offer to pay every American $5,000 to be wrong: "Where is the money supposed to come from?"
It was already clear at the start of the election campaign in September that many party members hardly wanted to be associated with Trump. A number of important senators stayed away from the party conference, sometimes with flimsy excuses. On stage, Trump shouted to the crowd: “Pretend I’m on the ballot.” Then came his offer, aimed at working people hit by high prices: $5,000 for every adult American if the Republicans win.
This hardly boosted the poll numbers. And so it is precisely the contested states like Maine that decide the future balance of power. The north of the state voted for Trump three times, and now it is his customs policy that is hitting them. Lumberjacks are worried about orders, paper mills are worried about their future, trade with Canada is shrinking. New tariffs have been in effect since September, which are also likely to damage the trade balance. There is a lot at stake: almost 90 percent of Maine is forested, the sector contributes more than eight billion dollars to the economy and supports around 30,000 jobs.
This explains why Democrat Troy Jackson portrays himself as a man of the hard-working middle. Instead of a suit and tie, he usually wears a cargo vest and jeans, and he posed with a chainsaw in the forest for his campaign photos. In fact, the father of two has worked in the Maine Legislature since the early 2000s. But it is also true that before that he was a lumberjack, became a trade unionist and led labor disputes.
It is a remarkable biography that stands out clearly from those of other hopefuls in the left camp. Zohran Mamdani, New York's mayor, also presents himself as a man for the common people. He grew up sheltered in wealthy Manhattan. The father is a professor, the mother is a director. It is rare for a provincial like Jackson, who learned a blue-collar job, to achieve political success.
"Jackson hasn't worked in the forest for 25 years. But he has close ties to the industry," says Dana Doran. The managing director of the professional logging contractors association Professional Logging Contractors (PLC) has known the politician for years and is in contact with his son, who is himself a PLC member. From the lobbyist's point of view, the Trump administration's tariffs have the greatest impact on machinery, spare parts and truck components, because much of this comes from abroad.
Sales of pulp and paper products sold worldwide are also suffering as markets are "heavily influenced by what the Trump administration does" and other countries responded with counter tariffs. The situation is made worse by the price of diesel, which used to account for 15 percent of operating costs and now accounts for up to 30 percent. “Many timber harvesting companies are currently operating at a loss,” says Doran.
There it is again, the dissatisfaction with the president and the uncertainty that is affecting many industries. But is harsh criticism of Trump, coupled with the story of a lumberjack career, enough to win over swing voters and workers? Jackson's home in northern Maine in particular is deeply conservative. Red Republican posters dominate the streets of Caribou. In a gun shop, a customer waves and just laughs when asked if he could imagine choosing blue this time.
In the liberal South with its coastal cities, however, the Democrats dominate. And this is exactly where your problem emerges. The audience at the brewery in Freeport doesn't look like the working class, but rather like the educated middle class and left-liberal students. Groups that would never vote for the Republicans anyway. No wonder Jackson gets cheers every few seconds on the beer counter. "We will fight for a government that is there for ordinary people. I've been fighting for this my whole life," he shouts.
How exactly the Democrats want to make life affordable remains to be seen this evening. Trump's promise of tariffs was the opposite. What the Democrats' promise is remains to be seen.
