Maine voters are set to start casting their ballots in early October. And when they do, they could have less information about Democratic nominee Troy Jackson’s personal and campaign finances than any other major U.S. Senate candidate across the country. 

Typically, U.S. Senate candidates must file a personal financial disclosure report with the Senate and quarterly campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission well in advance of the general election. This gives the public access to information about campaign funding sources and potential personal conflicts of interest before voters cast their ballots.

However, Jackson’s campaign has been anything but typical after Maine Democrats chose him during this summer’s fast-moving process to replace previous nominee Graham Platner in the race against incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins. The timing of that replacement means Jackson hasn’t yet had to file a quarterly FEC report or his Senate personal financial disclosure. 

His campaign has been playing catch up from the beginning, with Collins enjoying a multi-million-dollar headstart in fundraising. And it’s looking like Maine voters won’t have a full picture of Jackson’s personal and campaign finances until early voting starts on Oct. 5. 

Based on a Maine Monitor analysis of federal disclosure documents, Jackson is one of only 10 current Democratic or Republican U.S. Senate nominees around the country who have not submitted some version of a federal personal financial disclosure report. All other active major party nominees have either submitted a candidate report or an annual financial report as a sitting senator or member of the U.S. House of Representatives. 

There are 35 U.S. Senate seats in play during this year’s midterm elections, meaning there will be roughly 70 total nominees between the Democratic and Republican parties. A small handful of those races include a nominee from just one of the two major parties.  

Three states — Delaware, New Hampshire and Rhode Island — have yet to finalize their Senate nominees. The Monitor is not including those active primary states in this analysis, or general election nominees from smaller national or state parties who are not considered contenders. Those candidates may not have eclipsed the fundraising total necessary to submit personal financial disclosure information to the Senate or register as a candidate with the FEC.   

Senate candidates are typically supposed to file personal financial disclosure reports within 30 days of becoming a candidate, unless they haven’t raised or spent $5,000 yet. And though Jackson has crossed that threshold, he was granted a 55-day extension after joining the race during Democrats’ late rush to replace Platner in July. Jackson now has until Oct. 5 to file that report, which is also the first day of early voting in Maine. 

Additionally, because his Senate campaign committee did not register with the FEC until after the most recent quarterly filing deadline, Jackson is one of only two among those 10 candidates who currently have no campaign-specific fundraising and spending data available on the FEC website. An FEC spokesperson confirmed that Jackson won’t be required to file his first regular campaign finance report until the next quarterly reporting deadline on Oct. 15. 

The only other major party candidate already on the ballot who hasn’t submitted an FEC quarterly report or Senate personal financial report is Alaska Republican Gerald Heikes, a longshot and late addition who originally finished fifth in that state’s non-partisan top-four primary. The fourth-place finisher withdrew from the general election in late August, elevating Heikes to the November ballot along with two other Republican Senate candidates who finished ahead of him in the primary. 

Jackson’s delay in providing personal and campaign finance information does not violate any Senate or FEC rules. But the extended timeline means voters may not have a clear window into his finances until early voting has started, whereas they can currently see more detailed information about Collins through her annual Senate financial disclosure and her July FEC quarterly report data. 

And as the Collins and Jackson campaigns ramp up attacks on each other that involve questions about family lobbying connections, the influence of billionaire donors and congressional stock trading, these reports can provide factual grounding amid a sea of one-sided political attacks. 

What we know about Collins 

After nearly 30 years in office, there is a long public record of Collins’ personal and campaign financial information. The most recent FEC data from January 2025 through June 2026 shows that her campaign committee has raised more than $16 million and spent nearly $8 million so far in that year-and-a-half period. 

The data also shows that donors in three states — Florida, California and New York — have provided more money to Collins’ campaign in individual contributions than donors in Maine since the start of 2025.

The public also has access to a trove of information about Collins’ personal finances, and those of her husband Tom Daffron, thanks in part to legislation like the Stock Act of 2012 that Collins supported. Her most recent annual personal financial report highlights Daffron’s extensive investment portfolio, which includes stock in nearly 50 different companies totaling between $1.6 and $4.1 million.

The Senate disclosure forms often include ranges for assets rather than specific dollar amounts. 

The companies featured in Daffron’s individual stock portfolio include major players in the technology, health care, financial services, defense, food and beverage, banking, energy and aerospace sectors like Amazon, Apple, Pepsico, Boeing, Microsoft, Johnson and Johnson, RTX (formerly Raytheon), Merck, ConocoPhillips, United Health Group and others. 

In addition to the individual stocks he owns, Daffron also has substantial mutual fund and bond holdings listed on Collins’ most recent financial disclosure that was filed on May 15 and covers calendar year 2025. 

Between bank deposits, stocks, bonds, mutual funds and government securities, that report shows the combined total assets between Collins and Daffron somewhere between $3.5 and $9.6 million. 

The stock trading issue has become a flashpoint in the Maine Senate race. In an Aug. 18 press release, Jackson campaign spokesperson Dan Gottlieb accused Collins of bowing to lobbyists and special interests “to enrich herself and her family with the hundreds of thousands of dollars in stocks her husband holds in industries Collins oversees.” Collins has faced questions, and criticism from political opponents, given the companies and sectors that her husband holds stock in and her work on related committees like the powerful group of Senate appropriators that she currently leads. 

Current law allows members of Congress and their spouses to own and trade individual stocks, but requires that ownership to be disclosed and prevents members and spouses from using any non-public information gained from congressional service in those purchases. Earlier this year, Collins violated the disclosure provisions when she was five days late in filing disclosure forms for a pharmaceutical bond that Daffron purchased in February, which her office acknowledged and attributed to a delayed notification from the third-party advisor that oversees Daffron’s investments. 

The Collins campaign has repeatedly pushed back against stock and lobbying-related critiques like the ones Jackson and other Democrats have levied against her. 

“Insider trading is illegal — and it should be. In fact, Senator Collins wrote the law signed by President Obama that explicitly ensured that Members of Congress and their staff are not exempt from insider trading laws,” Kernen told The Monitor. “Throughout her entire service in the Senate, Senator Collins has never bought, sold, or owned any individual shares of stock. Her husband’s investment decisions are made exclusively by a third-party advisor. No individual stocks have been bought or sold from his account in more than three years.”

The Stock Act’s lead sponsor was Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who credited Collins at the time for her collaboration with him on that legislation.

However, Collins has opposed recent bipartisan efforts to create a total ban on individual stock ownership by members of Congress and their spouses, which would force lawmakers to divest stock assets even from blind trusts. This approach has been especially popular with reform groups and the American public, but has not gained enough support among lawmakers. 

Craig Holman, an ethics and campaign finance lobbyist at the D.C.-based non-profit Public Citizen who has helped shape some of the more significant federal government ethics reforms in recent decades including both the Stock Act and the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, is now working to enact stronger congressional stock trading prohibitions.

Holman has been frustrated that the popularity of a total ban on congressional stock trading, which polls have shown at over 80 percent nationally and across party lines, hasn’t translated into action in Congress. 

“There are surveys that show how popular that is. But it doesn’t really resonate,” Holman said about the inaction on an all-out stock trading ban. “Members of Congress, most of them don’t actually come out and say they’re opposed to it, they just won’t do it.”

Kernen said Collins believes that members of Congress and their spouses should be able to maintain an existing stock portfolio as long as it is managed by a third-party advisor with no consultation, and should not have to divest after getting elected. 

Jackson, in contrast, has supported a total congressional stock ban, listing that as a priority on his campaign website. But while he has criticised Collins and her husband for their publicly available financial disclosure information, voters still don’t have the same window into Jackson’s personal finances. And they might not until early voting has already started in Maine. 

Some existing information about Jackson

While there is no detailed information about Jackson’s campaign fundraising or spending available on the FEC website, his campaign has released at least two small snapshots of his fundraising efforts. The campaign said before the July 25 Democratic replacement convention that it had already raised $1 million when Jackson was still the presumptive nominee. 

The Jackson camp put out another press release on July 27 saying that total had swelled to $2 million, with 30,000 new donors helping to fuel the surge. But these announcements did not include the same level of detail that would be available on the FEC website, such as the state of origin for individual contributions. 

Additional information about Jackson’s campaign funding is available in a roundabout way, by looking at the FEC data for Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue, which shows roughly $5 million being sent to Jackson’s campaign since it formed earlier this summer. But that is yet another incomplete snapshot that does not reflect Jackson’s full fundraising effort.  

Without this full data, it is hard to know exactly who is donating to his campaign. A Maine Monitor analysis earlier this year used FEC campaign finance data to find that a large group of billionaires — nearly 100 individuals between the billionaires and their spouses combined — had donated to the network of groups supporting Collins’ reelection effort.

Maine Democrats seized on that volume of billionaire support for Collins, and Jackson mentioned it as part of his own fundraising plea in early August. But the same level of information is not yet available about Jackson’s donors, which could help provide insight into how many billionaires — if any — have donated to his campaign. 

Some insight into Jackson’s personal finances can be gleaned from his previous financial disclosures as a state legislator. He termed out of the Maine Senate after eight consecutive years of service from 2016 to 2024, including the last six as Senate president. His final personal financial disclosure statement, required for all current state lawmakers, is from 2024.

That most recent statement from Jackson’s state service, provided to The Monitor by the Maine Ethics Commission, shows two sources of employment income from Jackson’s work as an organizer for the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades along with Brewer-based non-profit Food and Medicine. The state disclosures do not include any income numbers — not even dollar ranges, which federal disclosures would show.  

Jackson’s 2024 disclosure also lists one business entity under his name, the logging and forestry business Jackson Associates. The 2026 annual report for Jackson’s business, available through the Maine secretary of state’s office, describes the character of the business as “construction” and “land management.” 

No other income from self-employment, business entities or any other sources are listed for Jackson on his 2024 state form. 

The disclosure doesn’t list any investment income, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he owns no stock, which could be clarified in a more detailed U.S. Senate report. 

It’s unclear whether Jackson will include his longtime partner, Lana Pelletier, as part of his federal disclosure because they are not legally married. Jackson did include Pelletier on his state disclosures, showing that she worked as a clinical care specialist for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, but his campaign did not answer a question from The Monitor about whether Pelletier will be included on the forthcoming federal disclosure. 

Additionally, the Jackson campaign did not respond to questions last week asking whether he would submit his personal financial information to the Senate before the extended deadline of Oct. 5 or whether he would voluntarily release campaign finance data before the next official FEC reporting deadline on Oct. 15, which the agency confirmed he is allowed to do.

Editor’s note: Matt Junker worked in the U.S. Senate for Sen. Angus King from 2013 to early 2017 and spent several of those years living in Washington, D.C., with staff members of Sen. Susan Collins.

 This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor, a nonprofit civic news organization. To get regular coverage from The Monitor, sign up for a free Monitor newsletter here.