Sen. Susan Collins set social media ablaze this week with an arch remark about Democrat Troy Jackson’s longtime romance with his second cousin, which has produced two adult children.
Collins, 71, the Republican incumbent from Maine, made the comment during an interview columnist Jonathan Martin that was published Wednesday. She was discussing Jackson, the former president of Maine’s Senate who is now her Democratic challenger in the closely watched Senate race.
“I’m not going to bring up the fact that the mother of his two children is his second cousin. I don’t know whether people know that or not,” Collins told Martin.
After Martin remarked, “I think you just mentioned it,” Collins insisted “it’s up to people to decide” whether Jackson’s family ties would be a campaign issue.
“It’s not something I’m going to be emphasizing,” she insisted.
The exchange quickly went viral on social media, drawing grudging admiration even from Democratic operatives. “‘Well *I’m* not going to bring up that the mother of his children is his second cousin’ is 10/10,” Democratic strategist Caitlin Legacki grudgingly admitted on X Wednesday.
Republican strategists were more effusive. “This is why Susan Collins shouldn’t be underestimated—she’s a battle-tested politician,” Republican strategist Shermichael Singleton added on X.
Politico editor Mike DeBonis remarked on the platform that the clip was “A less-than-2-minute precis of how Susan Collins is as stone-cold a political combatant as the Senate has ever seen.”
“Don’t let the New England lilt and the pastel outfits fool you: Collins is still the Lady on the Iron Throne,” The Independent’s Washington bureau chief Eric Michael Garcia assessed on X.
Jackson, who took over the Democratic nomination from accused rapist Graham Platner, shares the same great-grandparents as his beau, Lana Pelletier. The couple’s relationship has produced two adult children.
Collins assessed that Jackson is “neither new nor different,” having spent two decades in state politics. “They have different vulnerabilities. They really do,” Collins said when asked which of Jackson or Platner she would have rather run against. “Under Troy Jackson’s leadership in Augusta, electric rates have skyrocketed.”
“Maine’s [energy prices] are the fourth highest in the country, and he voted against a bill recommended by the independent public advocate that would have helped lower rates,” she added. “Anyone who has a record has vulnerabilities that a person without a record, like Graham Platner, does not.”
Jackson’s campaign did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Last month, it was revealed that Jackson physically assaulted a man he believed had romantic intentions toward Pelletier in 1988. Other reports paint Jackson as having a hair-trigger temper, with former colleagues once accusing him of throwing a water bottle in anger during a discussion with a female legislator.
Ironically, both Platner and Jackson have sought to pin Maine’s woes on Collins, the lone New England Republican in Congress, despite Democrats controlling both the state legislature and governor’s office.
Collins is widely seen as the most vulnerable incumbent Republican senator, but she has a history of dramatically overperforming her polls. Currently, Jackson has a 2.3 percentage point lead over Collins in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of surveys.