Troy Jackson got his viral moment in Tuesday’s debate. Will it

Maine Senate nominee Troy Jackson is riding a political high following his first debate against Sen. Susan Collins, finally gaining the viral momentum his campaign has struggled to capture since he became the Democratic nominee in July following Graham Planter’s withdrawal.

On Tuesday night, Jackson faced Collins in the first debate between the rivals, using the affordability pressures facing Maine voters to draw a contrast with the Republican incumbent over President Donald Trump’s tariff fight with Canada and the Iran war.

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“I did not expect the level of performance he just put on, and I think our supporters and, frankly, folks who were just like watching this race and weren’t set one way or the other were quite impressed,” an operative working on Jackson’s campaign expressed to the Washington Examiner.

Liz Shuler, the president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, congratulated Jackson in a post on X following the debate, writing, “That’s what a fighter for working people looks like. The people of Maine deserve that in Washington.”

During the debate, Jackson quipped that Maine residents “can’t eat road salt” in response to Collins touting her efforts to get road salt, concrete, and pulp removed from the Trump administration’s list of tariffed items.

“I mean, we can’t eat road salt, and the thing about it is that everything that she’s doing with the Iran war and stuff like that, there’s going to be so many less people to be able to afford to drive that I’m not even sure the road salt’s going to be worth anything either,” Jackson said.

It was a moment that gained traction online and underscores the issue Democrats have made central to the 2026 campaign: the rising cost of living.

Coming into the debate, Jackson, who came in third in the Democratic primary for Maine’s governorship, faced pressure over whether he could hold his own against Collins, a veteran campaigner who is the longest-serving Republican woman in the Senate.

Jackson has previously acknowledged that he is “not a polished speaker,” telling a local radio host in April that he doesn’t “pretend to be.” The Maine Democrat largely stayed on message during the debate, armed on the stage with a white binder as he sought to attach Collins to the Trump administration and the affordability crisis.

“ He didn’t need to be, you know, a Harvard orator,” the operative working on Jackson’s campaign told the Washington Examiner. “He’s just a normal guy who puts it plain, and I think that’s why it broke through. It was just so, it was so simple. It was so plain spoken, and it was just matter of fact.”

However, unlike the first debate, the second face-off will not allow the candidates to have notes onstage, a source familiar told the Washington Examiner.

Whether Jackson’s comment will translate to support at the voting booth is unclear. Research has suggested that TV debates have little impact on elections, with a 2019 Harvard Business School study finding that the events “have only a negligible effect on voters’ candidate choice.” Still, in more recent history, former President Joe Biden’s debate performance against President Donald Trump ultimately led him to drop his reelection bid entirely, showcasing that a candidate’s performance on the debate stage can possibly reshape a race.

Maine’s Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart called Jackson’s comment “frankly pretty absurd,” and “out of line with what reality is,” given the importance of road salt to clear the state’s roads during the harsh winter months.

“Maybe you know, the internet just catches fire with silly things like this,” Stewart said. “Well, you can’t eat road salt, so therefore we’re going to use that as the defining moment of an entire debate.”

He continued, “Where I heard an hour of a highly effective individual at their job explain what it is that she’s doing with detail, what the plan is, things that she brings to the table, contrasted with, you know, just sort of dopey comments like that from a guy who came in third in the primary for a completely different office a few months ago.”

The debate was the first of four debates the pair will take part in, with the second scheduled for Thursday. The operative working for Jackson’s campaign told the Washington Examiner that they expected Jackson to continue pressing Collins on the ProPublica report suggesting she was under FBI scrutiny as it looked into pay-to-play allegations in the final months of the Biden administration. Collins has dismissed the report as “completely false” and “very offensive.”

“But like frankly, if he did half the way he did yesterday, I would be happy,” the operative said. “Like that was beyond what I think Maine Democrats or just Maine voters were, you know, necessarily conditioned to expect from, you know, I think a narrative that just never was the reality.”

The operative said, “The narrative that this guy isn’t — I don’t need him to be a perfect poet, I need him to be a real fucking guy, and I saw that last night.”