Troy Jackson's working-class Senate pitch collapsed online after a viral boba tea ad drew mockery from both parties, while Susan Collins flagged his temper.
Fox News reported that Maine Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson is taking fire from left and right over a campaign video that shows him sipping boba tea while trying to sound like a regular guy. The post on X has been viewed more than 2 million times.
In the ad, Jackson asks, "If Republicans spend $46 million on these TV ads, who’s gunna be convinced by that?" He answers himself: "the 1%ers." Photos of Sen. Susan Collins and Tesla CEO Elon Musk appear on screen while he talks.
Critics say the bit lands as tone-deaf pandering, not authentic working-class politics. Jackson is a fifth-generation logger and former Maine Senate president. That résumé did not stop the pile-on.
Democratic strategist Steve Schale pointed straight at Maine’s voters. "Maine is the oldest median age electorate in the nation," he wrote on X. "I know I’m not a DC strategist but I really, really don’t get it."
Liberal influencer Harry Sisson was blunt. "Troy Jackson needs to win but videos like this are unhelpful and cringey," he posted. "Please change it up! No boba tea!"
Left-wing podcaster Kyle Kulinski tied the ad to past Democratic failures and told Jackson to drop the gimmicks.
"The same people that ran Mallory McMorrow's campaign into the ground are telling you to do this goofy s---. Just get out there and tell the truth and speak from the heart for economic justice and against war and stop with all this bulls---. C'mon man. You're smarter than this."
Republicans piled on just as hard. Communicator Matt Whitlock wrote that it was "a little bit funny to be desperately trying to position as working class masculine male and have gen-z women run your socials like they would run their own personals."
GOP communicator Steve Guest called the clip "Weird" and added, "Looks like the first time that Troy Jackson has ever had boba." Journalist Chris Cillizza went with sarcasm: "Boba tea! Just like regular people!"
Former Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh reminded everyone of the earlier spin. "Want to remind you that Democrats were openly proud of how masculine their Maine campaign was going to be and then they ran this ad," he posted.
Political races keep turning on personal image and old baggage, a pattern also visible when a Michigan Democrat’s 2013 arrest resurfaced in a high-stakes House fight.
While the ad circulated, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, raised a separate warning. In Kittery on Aug. 14, 2026, she told Fox News Digital that Jackson apparently "struggles to control his temper."
Collins is running for a sixth six-year term. Jackson has already gone after her hard on social media, writing, "Susan Collins is blatantly corrupt."
She has also pushed back on a ProPublica report describing an FBI effort to launch a pay-to-play investigation that examined Collins and others. The inquiry was later dropped. No one working for Collins was charged. She called the report "offensive" and a "partisan hit job."
Candidate controversies and ethics fights have forced other exits and damage control elsewhere, including when Rep. Chuck Edwards left a reelection race after an ethics panel found a pattern of inappropriate conduct toward female aides.
Jackson was not the original Democratic nominee. Combat veteran and oyster farmer Graham Platner won the June Democratic primary in a landslide. About a month later, in late July, he dropped out after a report containing an allegation of rape from a woman he previously dated. Platner denied the report but stepped aside.
Maine Democrats then chose Jackson at a special nominating convention. Collins had slightly trailed Platner in most polling before that exit. The race flipped to a new matchup almost overnight.
Sudden nominee changes and scandal fallout are familiar in modern campaigns, much like the explosive optics around Hunter Biden’s filmed motel confrontation that kept Democrats on defense.
A New York Times/Siena survey of likely voters, conducted Sept. 15, 22, was one of the first to put Collins ahead of Jackson after he replaced Platner. Collins stood at 49%. Jackson had 46%. Five percent were undecided. Her three-point edge sat inside the survey’s margin of error.
The same poll found 55% of those questioned preferred Democrats to control the Senate next year, while 43% wanted Republicans to keep the majority. Maine remains a blue-leaning state, yet Collins has long run as a durable incumbent.
Fox News Digital reached out to Jackson’s campaign for comment. The provided reporting does not record a response.
Primary fights sometimes reward candidates who survive serious allegations, as when Mark Lamb won an Arizona GOP primary despite misconduct claims and with Trump’s backing. Jackson’s problem is different: his own ad is doing the damage.
Jackson’s campaign wanted voters to see a logger who talks about "the 1%ers" and shrugs off big Republican ad spending. Instead, large parts of the internet saw a scripted sip of boba tea and called it fake.
That gap matters in a state Schale correctly noted has the nation’s oldest median-age electorate. A drink associated with younger coastal trends is a strange prop for that map. Democrats who wanted a masculine, blue-collar frame handed critics an easy punchline.
Collins, for her part, is not only polling slightly ahead. She is defining Jackson on temperament while he tries to define her as corrupt. The viral clip did not help him reset that fight.
Voters can smell a put-on. When a candidate sells grit and then films the opposite, both parties notice, and the other side does not have to lift a finger.
